Daughter of Crows - The Academy of Kindness by Mark Lawrence Hardcover

Book Synopsis

The survivor of a brutal academy must exhume her own past in the first book in a new series from the international bestselling author of the Library Trilogy and the Broken Empire series.

Set a thief to catch a thief. Set a monster to punish monsters.

The Academy of Kindness exists to create agents of retribution, cast in the image of the Furies--known as the kindly ones--against whom even the gods hesitate to stand. Each year a hundred girls are sold to the Academy. Ten years later only three will emerge.

The Academy's halls run with blood. The few that survive its decade-long nightmare have been forged on the sands of the Wound Garden. They have learned ancient secrets amid the necrotic fumes of the Bone Garden. They leave its gates as avatars of vengeance, bound to uphold the oldest of laws.

Only the most desperate would sell their child to the Kindnesses. But Rue ... she sold herself. And now, a lifetime later, a long and bloody lifetime later, just as she has discovered peace, war has been brought to an old woman's doorstep.

That was a mistake.

Review Quotes

Praise for Mark Lawrence and the Library series

"The most tightly plotted novel I've ever had the pleasure of reading.... It's truly magnificent."--Book Riot

"This tale of knowledge and its cost flies by, thanks to the gripping mystery and beautiful world-building. . . . Readers will be desperate for more."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Gripping, earnest, and impeccably plotted."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"An excellent writer."--#1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin

"Mark Lawrence is the best thing to happen to fantasy in recent years."--New York Times bestselling author Peter V. Brett

About the Author

Mark Lawrence was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, to British parents but moved to the UK at the age of one. After earning a PhD in mathematics at Imperial College London, he went back to the US to work on a variety of research projects, including the "Star Wars" missile-defense program. Since returning to the UK, he has worked mainly on image processing and decision/reasoning theory. He never had any ambition to be a writer, so he was very surprised when a half-hearted attempt to find an agent turned into a global publishing deal overnight. His first trilogy, The Broken Empire, has been universally acclaimed as a groundbreaking work of fantasy, and both Emperor of Thorns and The Liar's Key have won the David Gemmell Legend Award for best fantasy novel. Mark is married, with four children, and lives in Bristol.