Do you like fantasy books? If so, The Graceling Realm series by Kristin Cashore is a wonderfully crafted set of stories in a captivating world sure to please.
All of the stories take place in the same world, but each is its own story with different main characters. This world is made up of 7 main countries, and some of the people, called Gracelings, have extreme skills. The skills of Gracelings could be anything, from painting to killing, and they are born with two different colored eyes.
Graceling, the first novel in this series, focuses on the life of Katsa, who is a Graceling and niece of the king of one of the countries. She has the power of killing, and goes on an adventurous journey throughout the novel. Throughout her adventure she uncovers secrets, meets new people, and has to protect the world.
Currently there are five books in this series: Graceling, Fire, Bitterblue, Winterkeep, and Seasparrow. They have been released in this order, however, this is not the chronological order of the books. Fire takes place before Graceling in the chronological order, and then the rest out in the release order.
I recommend reading these books in the order they were released, because Graceling sets up the world of the books, and Bitterblue has spoilers for Fire if you don’t read Fire first. The author has been creating these books for years and may still be adding to the series because Seasparrow was published in 2022.
These books are a good read, and really draw you into the story. There are plot twists and foreshadowing that you only realize after reading the whole book of one book, or sometimes it spans through multiple books. Each book also has a map of the world, which helps to visualize the story, where it is taking place, and what is happening.
The Graceling Realm series has some of the best fantasy books I have read because the world is so captivating and the characters are really interesting. There is adventure, romance, and things to learn from this book. It’s also exciting to see characters from previous books have cameos in other books, or a side character become the main character of another book.
Check out the Graceling Realm series by Kristin Cashore! Happy reading!
