Navola

'Steeped in poison, betrayal, and debauchery, reading Navola is like slipping into a luxurious bath full of blood.' Holly Black

Navola is a city built on trade.

Its palazzos and towers are conjured from its merchant wealth: barley and rice, flax and wool, iron and silver, arms, armies, lives and kingdoms are all traded here.

And presiding over it all, the Regulai bank. By guile, force of arms and the cast-iron might of their money and promises, in just three generations the Regulai family have risen far from their humble origins: merchants beg their backing, artists their patronage, princes an invitation to dine at their table. The Regulai say they are not political, but their wealth buys cities and topples kingdoms.

Soon, Davico di Regulai will take the reins of power. But the boy is not well-suited for his role. His heart is soft where it should be hard. He is credulous when he should be suspicious. He is tired of being tested and trained to inherit a legacy he is not sure he wants.

But Davico is inextricably tangled in fate's net and his doubts can only summon ruin.

In the shade of Navola's colonnaded porticoes, his family's enemies gather and plot.

In the shadows of its deep catacombs, assassins sharpen their stiletto knives.

In the kingdoms of Cerulean Peninsula, princes and despots muster their armies.

Davico's only hope rests in the heart of a girl whose own family was destroyed by the Regulai, and in a crystalline orb the size of a human head, said to be the eye of a long-dead dragon.

Review

Gorgeously detailed and utterly immersive, Navola must stand as one of the greatest and grandest fantasy novels of the modern era, its all-too real horrors beautifully measured. Nothing short of a masterpiece ― Daily Mail

'Steeped in poison, betrayal, and debauchery, reading Navola is like slipping into a luxurious bath full of blood.' -- Holly Black

Medici Florence meets Tony Soprano's New Jersey - with a delicious dash of high fantasy and a heavy splattering of blood. Navola is a grand feat of imagination by a storyteller at the peak of his powers.

-- Dan Jones

Bacigalupi dazzles in this addictive account of the rivalries between powerful families in a brilliantly rendered fantastical world inspired by 15th-century Florence. ― Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

[A] masterful fantasy epic... all of the sf/f fan-favorite Bacigalupi hallmarks are here: deep character development and astounding world-building, but this time with dragons ― Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

The triumph of Navola is that so often it's genuinely innovative, a fantasy novel that you didn't know you wanted to read ― SFX, 5*

A rewarding, slow-release pleasure... has real punch and power ― The Herald, Book of the Month

Very much in the George R. R. Martin style. Very readable ― Bookseller's Circle

A beautifully written book with some deep world building that draws the reader in ― SF Book Reviews

About the Author

Paolo Bacigalupi is the bestselling author of The Windup Girl. Between them, Bacigalupi and co-author Tobias S. Buckell have either won or been nominated for the Locus, Hugo, Nebula, Compton Crook, and John W. Campbell awards.