Nikolai has a team studying the drug looking for a cure or a form that enhances power without creating an addiction. Nina has taken it before in a dire situation and now carries a sensitivity to it. An army of the dead attack a group of soldiers and others.Ī highly addictive drug called Jurda Parem changes a Grisha’s power (it’s fatal to non-Grisha) and causes immediate, intense addiction. An assassin kills someone and injures someone else. Poison and drug addiction cause injury and death. There’s some exploration of what it means to be a saint and who should qualify for sainthood.Ī horse nearly tramples a soldier, injuring her head. In Ravka, the people mainly worship saints. References and some deference to the Fjerdan god, Djel. Nina admires another woman’s beauty in a romantic way. A soldier makes a comment that a girl looks like she’d be fun in bed. I think the SIX OF CROWS duology is still my favorite of the Grisha books, but this one is a very close second. I pretty much went from finishing the last page of KING OF SCARS to immediately opening up to the first page of RULE OF WOLVES because now I need to see where this ultimately goes. Nina and her plot to change the game in Fyerda. Like, I was enjoying reading and getting more into the story all the way through, but once I got to that last 25%, I was definitely hooked. I’m kind of a fool for witty banter, so the back-and-forth between her and Nikolai or her and other members of their team definitely drew me in. It took me a while to get into Zoya’s character. So that’s where I was when I picked up the book. I was looking forward to reading more of Nina’s story, but also not sure I was ready for the wall of grief she’d be experiencing.

I also really didn’t feel like I had a deep connection to or understanding of Zoya, so I wasn’t sure how to feel about reading her perspective.

When I read SHADOW AND BONE, I was pretty solidly team Alina and Nikolai, so I kind of never got over the fact that they didn’t end up together. I went into this book with some big reservations.

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo