Rule of Wolves

In this second book in the King of Scars duology (King of Scars, rev. 7/19, part of Bardugo's sprawling Grishaverse), King Nikolai is fighting to brace his small Ravkan kingdom against impending invasion by the Fjerdans, a superstitious people who fear the Grisha for their magical powers and either execute or enslave them as dangerous automatons in their army. Meanwhile, Nikolai's spy and friend Nina is working undercover in the household of a powerful Fjerdan witchhunter -- and falling in love with the witchhunter's daughter. Nikolai, with his seemingly unrequited feelings for his ultra-competent general Zoya, is a thoroughly likable protagonist, the more so when he engineers a climactic solution that will surprise and delight readers in its novelty and rightness. Plotting on a sweeping geo-magical-political canvas.