Convincing You to Read Books by Leigh Bardugo
If you have Goodreads and you follow Maude Garrett, Amanda Tass, or Amanda Guarragi (me), you know that Maude has been obsessed with Leigh Bardugo because of Six of Crows!
After Shadow and Bone season two was released, I decided to read it as well and I couldn’t put it down. The reason why Leigh Bardugo is such a talented writer is because of her pacing and descriptions for the action set pieces in her novels.
Leigh Bardugo created the Grishaverse which has now become even more popular because of the Netflix series. The next adaptation will hopefully be Six of Crows after the introduction of the jurda parem in season two.
Leigh Bardugo is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ninth House and the creator of the Grishaverse which spans the Shadow and Bone trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, the King of Scars duology — and much more. Her short fiction has appeared in multiple anthologies including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. She lives in Los Angeles and is an associate fellow of Pauli Murray College at Yale University.
Themes in Leigh Bardugo’s Books
Shadow and Bone: power, ambition, mysticism, the struggles between light and darkness, love
Siege and Storm: power, courage, destiny, oppression
Ruin and Rising: loyalty, power, love, sacrifice, inequality
Six of Crows: the conflict between love and allegiance, the power and danger of vengeance, reclaiming one’s power, revenge, greed
Crooked Kingdom: family and security, revenge, magic, healing from trauma
Rule of Wolves: war, monsters, magic, romance, grief
King of Scars: monstrousness, regrets, resentment, the power and pain of love, faith
Hell Bent: drug abuse, murder, self-harm (all treated with care), magic, misuse of power, wealth, greed
Ninth House: drug abuse, child abuse, sexual trauma (all treated with care), survival mode, privilege and responsibility
Synopsis
Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near-impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.
Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.
Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha . . . and the secrets of her heart.
Six of Crows Duology (Crooked Kingdom)
Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone. . . .
A convict with a thirst for revenge
A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager
A runaway with a privileged past
A spy known as the Wraith
A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums
A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes
Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.
King of Scars Duology (Rule of Wolves)
The dashing young king, Nikolai Lantsov, has always had a gift for the impossible. No one knows what he endured in his country's bloody civil war--and he intends to keep it that way. Now, as enemies gather at his weakened borders, Nikolai must find a way to refill Ravka's coffers, forge new alliances, and stop a rising threat to the once-great Grisha Army.
Yet with every day a dark magic within him grows stronger, threatening to destroy all he has built. With the help of a young monk and a legendary Grisha general, Nikolai will journey to the places in Ravka where the deepest magic survives to vanquish the terrible legacy inside him. He will risk everything to save his country and himself. But some secrets aren't meant to stay buried--and some wounds aren't meant to heal.
Ninth House (Hell Bent)
Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?
Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.
Why You Should Pick Up One Of Leigh Bardugo’s Books
The reason why so many readers have fallen in love with the Grishaverse and Bardugo’s work is because of how she writes her characters. There are multiple characters with different storylines in her novels and each one of them has such distinct qualities to make you remember them. It’s a skill that Bardugo has because she has readers care for every unique character, even the villain. Her world-building and character dynamics are the two things that keep readers coming back for more.
Even though Shadow and Bone is simply a story about light drowning out the darkness, Bardugo brought so much depth to the multiple meanings of that within power. The supporting characters getting their own spinoff for Six of Crows showcased how well she can write action and make the reader feel part of the team. And in King of Scars, the charming Nikolai Lantsov is the highlight to show how to fight within the Grisha Army. The Grishaverse is massive and Bardugo was smart to focus on certain characters in duologies to give readers more background to enhance the reading experience for Shadow and Bone.
Which Leight Bardugo books have you read? Do you prefer the King of Scars duology to Six of Crows? Let us know in the comments below or join our discord today!
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