Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass

By: Sarah J. Maas

Genre:  Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance

Length:  404 pages

Synopsis From Goodreads:

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.

Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for four years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

My Review:

Rating:

Happy New Year Everyone!! 

First book to be finished and reviewed in 2016 and it turns out to be one of my favorites. It is definitely ending up in my favorite section of my bookshelf. :D Loved every moment of this book, really wish I could have sat and read it all in one sitting but with work and the holidays that sadly did not happen, which made it difficult to stay in the action with the characters. Even so this was an amazing book and I cannot wait to read book two.

“Libraries were full of ideas–perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.” 

Celaena Sardothien is an assassin recruited by the Crown Prince, Dorian, to fight in the battles to become the King's Champion. Like the cover says it is a mix of The Hunger Games meets Game of Thrones, which is what really drew me to the story. Then I got to meet Sarah J. Maas at YallFest a couple years ago and that only increased my interest in the book. The story is set in an era of kings and queens, and criminals are set to fight for the title of Champion. But that's not the only danger hiding in the castle, these contestants are being killed one by one by a monster roaming the castle. 

Sarah J. Maas really brought this word to live in her characters and the settings. Overtime she described a room or an event I felt like I was really their with the characters. She did an amazing job describing the characters and developing different personalities for each, which is a hard task to pull off sometimes. 

This was a gripping story from page one where we meet the firecracker assassin Celaena in Endovier has a slave in the coal mines. She is swept away from that life by two men, Crown Prince, Dorian, and Captain of the Guard, Chaol. Both every charming guys!! But I was Team Chaol from the very beginning. I loved the witting banter between them. Can't wait to see where their relationship ends up in the next book. Now don't get me wrong Dorian is pretty great too! 

While Celaena is training to become the King's Champion, a monster is let loose in the castle, which adds a great twist of mystery to an already amazing book. We get to learn about the ancient Wyrdmarks, symbols used for powerful magic. We also come to learn that magic has been erased from the kingdom. Or has it? 

There were so many twists and turns throughout this book it had me constantly hooked. I didn't want to put it down. I would find myself reading pages at work just so I could see what was going to happen to Celaena next. This is definitely going to be a promising series. Ready to start reading book two right after I read The 5th Wave!

This is a must read of 2016!! 

Published by: K