Elantris

The award winning and critically acclaimed first novel from Brandon Sanderson is a brilliantly written epic fantasy
Elantris was built on magic and it thrived. But then the magic began to fade and Elantris began to rot. Now its shattered citizens face domination by a powerful Imperium motivated by dogged religious views. Can a young Princess unite the people of Elantris, and lead a rebellion against the imperial zealots? Brandon Sanderson's debut fantasy showed his skill as a storyteller and an imaginer of baroque magical systems to be fully developed from the start.