From memory, fairly soon after I finished reading The Farseer Trilogy, Robin Hobb started releasing The Liveship Traders. Since I enjoyed Farseer, it was a no-brainer to buy book one of Liveship to try out. It was very different from Farseer (third person instead of first person and a completely different area of the world), but I loved it just as much. And the versions that were being released in Australia were beautiful.

I read each book as they were published and I don’t think I have reread this series at all, so I have very little memory left. I know I want to reread it, and I remember that I loved the series. But aside from that most of what I remember would be considered spoilers, so I can’t share it here. Sorry, a pretty shit spotlight. But the point is to share what is on my bookshelves, and in the order that I read it for Fantasy, so this post still addresses the brief. So here’s the blurb that made me buy book one (well in addition to the beautiful cover and my enjoyment of Farseer).

Wizardwood. A sentient wood.

The most precious commodity in the world.

Like many other legendary wares, it comes only from the Rain River Wilds.

But how can one trade with the Rain River Traders, when only a liveship, fashioned from wizardwood, can negotiate the perilous waters of the Rain River? Rare and valuable, a liveship will quicken only when three family members, from successive generations, have died on board. The liveship Vivacia is about to undergo her quickening, as Althea Vestrit’s father is carried to her deck in his death-throes. Althea waits for the ship that she loves more than anything in the world to awaken. Only to discover that the Vivacia has been signed away in her father’s will to her brutal brother-in-law, Kyle Haven.

Others plot to win, or steal, a liveship. The Paragon, known by many as the Pariah, went mad, turned turtle and drowned his crews. Now he lies, blind, lonely and broken on a deserted beach. But greedy men have designs to restore him, to sail the waters of the Rain River once more.