Maybe it’s the alternating point of views, but despite being, admittedly, not a very plot-driven book, it was still a page-turner. Throw in pirates, an amazing heroine, well-rounded villains, and mysterious sea serpents, and you’ve got the start of a series that, to me, already promises much more than the Farseer trilogy did after the first book.

Nautical fantasy is already something pretty rare and original, but I absolutely loved the premise of this book: Trader families go into debt for generations to buy an expensive liveship built of magic wizardwood-once three generations of captains have died on its decks, the figurehead quickens to life, filled with the memories and wisdom of the three family members, and will sail only for its kin. The short reviews of the individuals book in the series below are completely spoiler-free and won’t give away anything, even if you haven’t read the preceding volume. A familiar character will make an appearance, and a lot of the questions about the Elderlings left unanswered by the previous books are finally resolved. If you have read the Farseer trilogy and are either tempted to skip ahead to Tawny Man to continue with the same cast of characters, or didn’t like it and want to drop the rest of the series, please don’t-you’ll miss out on one of the best female protagonists I’ve ever come across, and a self-contained series that I thought superior to the Farseer one in every conceivable way. While it does not continue the adventures of Fitz, whom we got to know in the Farseer trilogy, it is chronologically the next series to tackle. It is set in the same universe, but if you haven’t read the first sub-series, don’t fret-the narratives don’t overlap at all, not even geographically. The Liveship Traders is the second sub-series in the realm of the Elderlings, an overview and the recommended reading order of which can be found here. I don’t read a lot of what I call “pure” fantasy, but the Realm of Elderlings series does to me what no other book/series other than the Dark Tower and, to a lesser extent, Harry Potter and A Song of Ice and Fire have managed-it costs me my sleep because I need to know how it ends, so I either keep reading way past my bedtime, or I can’t sleep because I’m playing through all possible scenarios in my head.

The liveship trilogy