Ship of Magic: The Liveship Traders (Liveship Traders Trilogy, Book 1) - Hobb, Robin

Ship of Magic: The Liveship Traders (Liveship Traders Trilogy, Book 1) by Hobb, Robin

Format: Trade Paperback

Published by Del Rey, 2023

Bingtown is a hub of exotic trade and home to a merchant nobility famed for its liveships -- rare vessels carved from wizardwood, which ripens magically into sentient awareness. The fortunes of one of Bingtown's oldest families rest on the newly awakened liveship Vivacia. For Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy unjustly denied her -- a legacy she will risk anything to reclaim. For Althea's young nephew Wintrow, wrenched from his religious studies and forced to serve aboard ship, the Vivacia is a life sentence. But the fate of the Vestrit family -- and the ship -- may ultimately lie in the hands of an outsider. The ruthless pirate Kennit seeks a way to seize power over all the denizens of the Pirate Isles...and the first step of his plan requires him to capture a liveship of his own and bend it to his will...

Demonstrating world-building finesse, Robin Hobb begins the climatic story of a seafaring clan and its tangled destiny. Though expected to inherit her family's newly quickened liveship, Althea Vestrit loses the honor to her scheming brother-in-law, who plans to use it as a slave ship. The ruthless pirate Captain Kennit also sees a captured liveship as his key to success. Soon Althea is forced to fight both men to regain the animate, intelligent liveship, her family's most treasured possession.