Summer is the best of times to pick up a good fantasy book (or series) and get lost in a world of the author’s imagination. This summer, I wandered through the world of Erilea where witches, humans, and Fae live alongside all manner of creatures in Sarah J Maas’s eight-book Throne of Glass series. Maas has become a household name for YA fantasy romance. Both her later series A Court of Thorns and Roses and Crescent City have massive fan followings, but Throne of Glass was her first. Having read the other two series, I decided to surrender myself to Maas’s first world-building series; it was a suspenseful, delightful descent. As anyone familiar with Maas’s other works would expect, Throne of Glass series includes a hefty dose of struggles (both internal and external) among a growing cast of characters who all come together in the hope of making a better world through love and friendship.
The first novel (published as a prequel), The Assassin’s Blade (March 2014), introduces the swaggering teenage assassin, Celaena Sardothien, living through dark times nearly ten years after magic has left the land of Erilea. She is bold and tough and beautiful, but she is also young and hotheaded. Throne of Glass (2012) was Maas’s debut novel, but I read it second (as the action happens after that of The Assassin’s Blade). It brings together the trinity of characters who will play a meaningful role throughout the entire series: Celaena, Prince Dorian, and Chaol Westfall. Crown of Midnight (2013) continues to follow Celaena, Dorian, and Chaol’s tricky relationships as a larger struggle begins to unravel. Then Heir of Ash (September 2014), Queen of Shadows (2015), and Empire of Storms (2016) focus on Celaena as she truly comes of age and embraces her destiny. The penultimate book, Tower of Dawn (2017) focuses on Chaol as he goes in search of allies and healing. As readers would expect, all the characters come together in the final, wrist-strainer of a book, Kingdom of Ash (2018). Many other lovable characters develop throughout the books, along with some truly detestable ones. At nearly one thousand pages, Kingdom Ash provides plenty of satisfying togetherness by the end as characters step into their own and fight side by side to create a better world, to whatever end.
In lieu of spoilers, I will say that I found Maas’s world- and character-building simply delightful; even as she portrays terrible suffering and despicable cruelty, the fire of hope always smolders. The world of Throne of Glass includes plenty of evil and dark forces, enslaving and mutilating people, and causing children of violence to come of age wildly far from the positions and identities they were born to. And yet fate brings them together, and together they find hope. These books highlight the power of hope, love, and friendship, as well as forgiveness of self and others. They include plenty of violence and war, but also weave in a hefty dose of healing. Bonds form between people in one book that many books later may change the fate of all. In the end, relationships are key.
Speaking of relationships, readers should know that Throne of Glass is YA fantasy romance. As the characters age in the series, scenes become increasingly explicit (even if all the books are labeled Young Adult). Luckily, August is “Romance Appreciation Month” in honor of the steamy genre; so reading Throne of Glass books was perfectly suited. Characters I had come to love in one book found their beloved, their mate (as Fae term the sacred bond), even as the world around them accelerates toward total annihilation. Forces of love, including plenty of rather steamy moments, define Throne of Glass as romance, but also are fundamental to the many-book series.
As in her other series, Maas plays with a multiple world model, and as such gods, immortals, and demons, take on new complexity. One element of such a system, careful readers also will note, is that Maas’s three series might reference one another. So, while I read her more recent book series first, the Throne of Glass would be the ideal place to begin. As it is, I may have to reread the books in the still developing A Court of Thorns and Roses series to see where, in fact, Maas makes mention of the conflicts and characters I came to love in Throne of Glass. I imagine any reader who revels in stories about darkness and dominion brimming with fantastical creatures (shape-shifters to faeries, water dragons to flying eagles) and plenty of magic with plenty of romantic tension, will find the eight books and their many thousands of pages, wildly entertaining and perhaps even a little addictive; in other words, utterly perfect for getting lost in during summer reading.
Bibliography
Maas, Sarah J. Crown of Midnight. Bloomsbury Publishing: 2013.
--- Empire of Storms. Bloomsbury Publishing: 2016.
--- Heir of Fire. Bloomsbury Publishing: 2014.
--- Kingdom of Ash. Bloomsbury Publishing: 2018.
--- Queen of Shadows. Bloomsbury Publishing: 2015.
--- The Assassin’s Blade. Bloomsbury Publishing: 2014.
--- Throne of Glass. Bloomsbury Publishing: 2012.
--- Tower of Dawn. Bloomsbury Publishing: 2017.
