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 freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.
Her opponents are male thieves, assassins and warriors from across the empire, each man 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 three years, and then be granted her freedom.
Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Choal, challenging and exhilarating. But Celanea’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 Choal 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.
First of, this book has an amazing back story. Ms. Maas started writing this when she was 16 on a site called FictionPress. She has been working on Throne of Glass for years, and finally published it this year. This is incredibly inspirational to me, as I am an aspiring author, it gives young writers hope that they can, in fact, publish their stories.
Now, to the actual book. I loved it. It reminded me a little bit of both Graceling and The Hunger Games. Yes, it was that amazing. It is from the point of view of several of the main characters so it gives you great back stories Also, Celaena is NOT perfect. Even though she was an amazing talented at many things (pianoforte, killing, etc.) she was still flawed She loved food (which I always love in female characters) and had a bit of a temper. I very much enjoyed this new world that S.J.Maas created. Its extraordinary but also very realistic.
I give Throne of Glass 5 out of 5 stars.
Maddie