A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin

A Dance with Dragons is the fifth of seven novels in the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire by American author George R. R. Martin.
A Dance with Dragons was originally the title of the second novel in the sequence, when George R. R. Martin still envisioned the series as a trilogy. Some early U. S. editions of A Game of Thrones (1996) list A Dance of Dragons as the forthcoming second volume in the series. The 1998 anthology Legends, which features the novella The Hedge Knight from the same universe, lists A Dance of Dragons as the fourth installment of the series. Like the previous four volumes in the Ice and Fire series, the book includes a lengthy appendix, with the volume running a total of 1022 pages: The War of the Five Kings in Westeros seems to be winding down. In the North, self-declared King Stannis Baratheon has installed himself at the Wall and vowed to win the support of the northmen to continue his struggle to claim the Iron Throne from the supposed children of his dead brother Robert Baratheon, actually offspring of incest between Robert's wife Cersei Lannister and her twin brother, Jaime the Kingslayer; this is complicated by the fact that the Lannisters have installed the traitorous House Bolton as Lords Paramount of the North, and much of the west coast is under occupation by the Ironborn. On the Wall itself, Eddard Stark's bastard son Jon Snow has been elected the 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, but the young man has enemies both in the Watch and beyond the Wall. (Summary by Wikipedia)