Ravka is a kingdom split by a band of darkness, and Alina Starkov is the soldier who turns out to matter to it.
Leigh Bardugo's opening Grishaverse trilogy runs across Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising, following Alina from an unremarkable army posting into a court of magic users, generals and people whose motives keep shifting. The world-building borrows Russian setting and vocabulary, and the three paperbacks are packaged as a single entry point to the wider Grishaverse.
Set contents and context:
• Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising
• Three paperbacks issued by Orion Children's Books in 2018
• The first trilogy set in Bardugo's Grishaverse
• Fantasy with political intrigue and romance woven in
Suited to young adult fantasy readers starting the Grishaverse, available in English from Boipoka.