Demonstrating world-building finesse, Robin Hobb begins the climatic story of a seafaring clan and its tangled destiny. Though expected to inherit her family's newly quickened liveship, Althea Vestrit loses the honor to her scheming brother-in-law, who plans to use it as a slave ship. The ruthless pirate Captain Kennit also sees a captured liveship as his key to success. Soon Althea is forced to fight both men to regain the animate, intelligent liveship, her family's most treasured possession.
The first novel in Robin Hobb's beloved Liveship Traders Trilogy

"Even better than the Farseer Trilogy--I didn't think that was possible."--George R. R. Martin

Bingtown is a hub of exotic trade and home to a merchant nobility famed for its liveships--rare vessels carved from wizardwood, which ripens magically into sentient awareness. Now the fortunes of one of Bingtown's oldest families rest on the newly awakened liveship Vivacia.

For Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy. For Althea's young nephew, wrenched from his religious studies and forced to serve aboard the ship, the Vivacia is a life sentence. But the fate of the ship--and the Vestrits--may ultimately lie in the hands of an outsider: the ruthless buccaneer captain Kennit, who plans to seize power over the Pirate Isles by capturing a liveship and bending it to his will.

"A truly extraordinary saga . . . The characterizations are consistently superb, and [Hobb] animates everything with love for and knowledge of the sea."--Booklist

Don't miss the magic of the Liveship Traders Trilogy:
SHIP OF MAGIC - MAD SHIP - SHIP OF DESTINY