Book Title: King of Scars (Nikolai Duology #1)
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Purchase: Amazon
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Description from Goodreads:

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, the young king 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 Squaller, 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.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars 

Holy guacamole, this book is so good! Leigh Bardugo proves once again she’s one of the most consistently amazing authors in the game. I believe I’ve read every book in the Grishaverse so far and even after waiting months or years in between releases, I’ve always been able to pick up right where we left off. 

So let’s get into it. It took me a ridiculously long time to pick up King of Scars because I just haven’t been feeling my Kindle lately — but when I was, I’d already set up a preorder for King of Scars so I just kind of let it sit there. Little did I know, I was undermining my own happiness every day I didn’t crack the electronic cover. I know, I know, how COULD I?

As I began reading, I wracked my mind for where we’d left off — I remembered a lot of ice, jurda parem, Kaz Brekker (obvi), and…an island?

And it has been years since I picked up the Shadow and Bone trilogy. But the details started coming back to me as we swapped from Nikolai’s and Nina Zenik’s — and later, Zoya’s — POVs. And guys, I SORELY missed these characters. Are any other kings as sassy, sarcastic, insufferable, and lovable as Nikolai? Name a better king, I’ll wait. What a treat it was getting to see inside Nikolai’s thoughts. He’s such a compelling character, and having a front-row seat to his cunning and strategic mind really exposed the reader to the intricacies of leading a country like Ravka, a ravaged country attempting to recover from a civil war.

Not to be outdone by Nikolai, Nina and Zoya vied for center-stage. Actually, since they were separated for the entire book, I’d say they were both the stars of their respective plot points. When we catch up with Nina, she’s still grappling with Matthias’s death. She’s been sent on an undercover mission to help free Grisha trapped and imprisoned in Fjerda. We watch as she grapples with accepting that Matthias is truly gone, trying to understand what’s left of the life she’s built while also recovering from a near-fatal addiction to parem. Luckily for us, Nina is one of the strongest women alive (in more ways than one), and she discovers a renewed sense of purpose in Fjerda and specifically, in a fearsome young, untrained Grisha named Hanne. Nina is the type of person who needs a purpose and the destiny she’s drawn to again and again is helping and empowering disenfranchised women — could there be a more noble cause?

Meanwhile, Zoya thinks she’s embarking on a mission to help Nikolai destroy the last vestiges of the Darkling’s power. I mean, yeah, sure, that’s Nikolai’s journey — but Zoya has a journey of her own. She confronts her own mixed feelings about the Darkling, as well as her wavering sense of self. She learns to trust in her own strength, rather than relying on Nikolai to fix Ravka, and she grapples with forgiving herself for ever having trusted the Darkling. In true Zoya fashion, she’s a badass storm witch throughout the novel, stealing scenes left and right. We also see a lot of setup for a potential Queen Zoya arc and I am not mad about it.

This book clocks in at a whopping 525 pages, but it reads so fast. Every single chapter advances the plot; every single page evokes laughter or fury or empathy or an overwhelming hurricane of all the conceivable emotions. And THE ENDING. I obviously won’t give it away, but OH. MY. FREAKING. GOSH. I’m so here for it. And, I suspect, all Leigh Bardugo fans will be.

And if you’re not already a Grishaverse convert? I mean, okay, I’m trying to picture that type of person and drawing a blank. But let’s say you’ve been super busy with work for the past five years — well, then let me tell you, if you’re a fan of Aladdin, you’ll probably enjoy King of Scars. Okay, there’s like one or two Aladdin-esque scenes and I may have recently watched the trailer for the live-action remake so it’s on my mind. But who doesn’t like Aladdin? No one! So by the transitive property, no one could dislike King of Scars. 

So I think you get the gist — a ringing five-star endorsement from me. And don’t mind as I casually add the Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows boxsets to my Amazon cart for a quick little reread…