Joe Abercrombie - Half the World (Shattered Sea #2)

New York Times bestselling author Joe Abercrombie’s thrilling new series continues in the follow-up to Half a King, which George R. R. Martin hailed as “a fast-paced tale of betrayal and revenge that grabbed me from page 1 and refused to let go.”

Sometimes a girl is touched by Mother War.

Thorn is such a girl. Desperate to avenge her dead father, she lives to fight. But she has been named a murderer by the very man who trained her to kill.

Sometimes a woman becomes a warrior.

She finds herself caught up in the schemes of Father Yarvi, Gettland’s deeply cunning minister. Crossing half the world to find allies against the ruthless High King, she learns harsh lessons of blood and deceit.

Sometimes a warrior becomes a weapon.

Beside her on the journey is Brand, a young warrior who hates to kill, a failure in his eyes and hers, but with one chance at redemption.

And weapons are made for one purpose.

Will Thorn forever be a pawn in the hands of the powerful, or can she carve her own path?

Yarvi, second son of the feared King Uthrik and the ruthless Queen Laithlin of Gettland, was born with a useless hand and cannot hold a shield or make fast a knot or pull an oar or do any of the things expected of a man. Left an outcast, he's surrendered his birthright and been given a woman's place, as apprentice to Mother Gundring, Gettland's minister, training to be an adviser, diplomat, healer, and translator. But when his father and brother are murdered by Grom-gil-Gorm, king of neighboring Vansterland, Yarvi is forced to take the black chair and become king himself--or half a king, at least --swear an oath of vengeance against the killers of his father, and lead a raid against the Vanstermen.

Betrayed, left for dead, and enslaved on a rotting trading galley, Yarvi will need all his minister's wit and cunning to escape and all his diplomacy and knowledge to keep a ragtag band of other slaves together on a monthlong trek across the frozen wastes of the utmost north. Among them are Sumael, the ship's single-minded navigator; Rulf, an ex-raider; Jaud, an ex-baker; and Nothing, a mad old man with a mysterious past and almost magical skill with a sword. And their owner, the brutal Captain Shadikshirram, will be dogging their heels at every step. Father Peace may be the patron god of ministers, but to reclaim the black chair, Yarvi will have to strike a deal with Mother War, and once you've invited the mother of crows to be your guest, there can be no telling whose blood will be spilled.



Read by John Keating
Format: MP3
Unabridged