Daughter of Crows by Mark Lawrence

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 – The Kindly Ones – against whom even the gods hesitate to stand.

Each year one hundred girls are sold to the Academy. Ten years later only three emerge.

The Academy’s halls run with blood. The few who 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.

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

About the Author: Mark Lawrence was born in Champagne-Urbanan, Illinois, to British parents but moved to the UK at the age of one. He went back to the US after taking a PhD in mathematics at Imperial College to work on a variety of research projects including the ‘Star Wars’ missile defence programme. Returning to the UK, he has worked mainly on image processing and decision/reasoning theory. He says he never had any ambition to be a writer so 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 ground-breaking work of fantasy, and both Emperor of Thorns and The Liar’s Key have won the Gemmell Legend award for best fantasy novel. Mark is married, with four children, and lives in Bristol.

26 Mar 2026
 

Daughter of Crows (The Academy of Kindness, Book 1) by Mark Lawrence ISBN 9780008696115