Crown Of Midnight By Sarah J Maas
Summary:
“A line that should never be crossed is about to be breached.
It puts this entire castle in jeopardy—and the life of your friend.”
From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul as black as pitch. Assassin Celaena Sardothien won a brutal contest to become his Champion. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown. She hides her secret vigilantly; she knows that the man she serves is bent on evil.
Keeping up the deadly charade becomes increasingly difficult when Celaena realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. As she tries to untangle the mysteries buried deep within the glass castle, her closest relationships suffer. It seems no one is above questioning her allegiances—not the Crown Prince Dorian; not Chaol, the Captain of the Guard; not even her best friend, Nehemia, a foreign princess with a rebel heart.
Review:
This book is amazing and dare I say it tops Throne Of Glass, Crown Of Midnight is a much more in-depth, thrilling and action packed story which makes me think that Sarah J Maas took a lot more time on this book than Throne of Glass but I am not complaining.
After surviving the trials in Throne of Glass, Calaena finds herself working alongside the king as his personal assassin, which seems to cause friction amongst her fellow companions as they find it too hard to understand why she would want to work alongside the same man that is responsible for the massacre that killed her parents ten years ago.
However, Calaena is being driven by her own personal agenda. One that requires unearthing all the dark secrets the king has tried so hard to bury and facing her past.
Maas delivers a strong sequel that offers hard hitting and jaw-dropping revelations throughout. I found it extremely difficult to put down Crown of Midnight as I felt like every time I got to a point where I could, a new secret was revealed. The book seriously takes a massive step away from Throne of glass and gives a better insight into Calaena’s past as an assassin , as well as her capabilities. Maas moves away from the clichéd love triangle that she explored between Chaol/Dorian/Calaena previously and focused more on Calaena’s character development and growth as a character. we now see why she is regarded the greatest assassin of all time because of her ruthlessness and unwillingness to take no for an answer, it is almost as if she has shed her naivety and vulnerability that she showed in Throne of Glass and has found her strength again.
In regards to Chaol and Dorian, my opinions on them really changed during the course of this book. I gained a lot more respect for Dorian as I found that he accepted Calaena for all that she is, not just a fragment of her personality. Whereas, I found that Chaol began to judge or somewhat change his opinion of Calaena once he began to see her assassin side which frustrated me slightly. However, this is only for a short period and my guess is that he had to adjust to her real character because Chaol is such a prideful and pragmatic character so it took him a while to get used to the transition of personality from Throne Of Glass.
Furthermore, if there is anything I praise Maas for in this review it would have to be her amazing written ability to keep you guessing until the very end. I literally had to stop myself from putting down COM simply because I had no idea how it ended, this book pretty much starts with a blank slate so I had no clue what was going to happen, which left me like a mouse searching for cheese in a cotton-field *erratic and crazy* .
In conclusion, Sarah J. Maas took all the good stuff from Throne of Glass like action and romance, increased them dramatically and added great insight into characters and elaborated on previously hinted history of fae ancestors and magic abilities. A definite 5*.
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