Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Meet Celaena Sardothian.

Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness.

In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, a seventeen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake. She got caught.

Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice, Celaena must represent the Prince in a to-the-death tournament – fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or losse, she is about to discover her true destiny.

But will her assassin’s heart be melted?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I read Throne of Glass in one sitting, breaking only to make tea and then move out of the lounge as my flat-mates started watching television I devoured ToG in just over four hours.

When it comes to genre fiction my first great love has always been fantasy (science-fiction came a bit later). Tog took me back to my early teens when I discovered a book, got hooked in the fist few pages and then spent half the night reading, much to my parents consternation.

As a main character Celaena is brilliant, young, talented and loves libraries and reading (I am a Librarian ok – that kind of thing scores major points for me!) in fact the inclusion of discussions of books and the derision of Prince Dorian when he discovers a romance novel that Celaena has been reading was brilliant.

Throne of Glass is a melange of fantasy, conspiracy and politics mixed deftly together by Sarah J. Maas. Centred largely at the heart of a brutal medieval-style empire where magic has been ruthlessly stamped out although vestiges of the fantastic remain on the periphery with references to the Fae that once lived in ancient forests and the destruction of centres of magical learning and even libraries that may have held books on magic having been destroyed it takes flashpoints of our reality including massacres, oppression, intolerance & slavery and places them in a fantastical setting.

Celaena’s struggles against mostly unpleasant competitiors to become the King’s Champion made a brilliant backdrop to the story!

What really won me over was the humour contained within Throne of Glass, the characters although constrained by their surroundings and experiences banter and joke as most young people are prone to do when thrown together. The burgeoning romance between Celaena, Prince Dorian watched helplessly by the Prince’s friend Chaol who is drawn to Celaena even though he distrusts her skills as an assassin is well handled and never feels forced.

Overall Throne of Glass reminds me of the works of the late Douglas Hill (Blade of the Poisoner) but is very much its own story, the number of story strands that were left dangling at the end made me hunger to know more!

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