Crooked Kingdom : the Dregs Edition

Fantasy

First published: 2016
Print length: 560 pagesHolt & Company, Henry, 2025

Description

Soon after their audacious previous venture, Kaz and his battered crew are nearly out of allies and locked in a struggle with merchant Jan Van Eck, who holds Inej captive. Kaz plans an exchange involving Van Eck’s wife while he and Wylan search for documents that might provide leverage. The crew must also help evacuate the city’s endangered Grisha, even as Pekka Rollins joins Van Eck and attacks their remaining positions. Nina, meanwhile, survives withdrawal from jurda parem only to discover that it has altered her abilities in disturbing ways. Told through eight viewpoints, this fantasy sequel turns overlapping rescues, feints, and reversals into a contest of loyalty and strategy in which every character’s private vulnerability can become an enemy’s weapon.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Atmospheric · Descriptive · Direct · Witty

Pace

Fast

Tone

Dark · Irreverent · Suspenseful · Tense

Structure

Braided · Linear

Focus

Character · Plot · Relationships

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 4 / 5
Background knowledge: 3 / 5

Themes

BelongingFriendshipLovePowerRevengeTrauma

About Leigh Bardugo

Leigh Bardugo is an Israeli-American fantasy writer whose work ranges from the young adult Grishaverse novels to adult paranormal fiction. Her stories place vulnerable outsiders inside institutions that want to recruit, control, or exploit their unusual abilities. Atmospheric settings and clearly defined magical powers support plots driven by political maneuvering, divided loyalties, and dangerous bargains. Shadow and Bone follows an orphaned mapmaker whose gift draws her into military training and court manipulation, establishing Bardugo’s interest in the contested ownership of power. Six of Crows reshapes that world as a tightly engineered heist, using shifting viewpoints, specialized roles, private histories, and successive reversals to make trust part of the plot’s machinery. In Ninth House, she moves to a Gothic version of Yale, where secret societies practice occult magic and a troubled student who sees ghosts investigates their abuses. Bardugo’s prose is descriptive but direct, keeping elaborate fantasy settings legible while maintaining brisk narrative momentum.