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Reading Order - Throne of Glass (ToG)
Sarah J. Maas
💕 Aelin & Rowan · Chaol & Yrene · Manon & Dorian
The series that started as the story of an assassin in a deadly competition and ended up as one of the most beloved epic fantasies in romantasy. Celaena Sardothien walks out of the salt mines of Endovier to compete for the title of King's Champion, and from there everything grows: forbidden magic, fallen kingdoms, witches who ride wyverns, immortal fae and a heroine who has to decide who she really is. It starts out YA and keeps rising in intensity, romance and spice with every book, with a huge cast that will break your heart more than once. Rowan, Manon and that thousand page final book, friends, then come tell me you don't get why so many people defend this series with their lives.
Reading style · Publication order
In the order they were originally published.
Editor's note: Publication order, which is honestly the best way to read this series. The Assassin's Blade is a prequel with five novellas about Celaena before Endovier, and even though it comes first chronologically, I recommend reading it after Crown of Midnight and before Heir of Fire, which is exactly when it was published. By then you already know Celaena, you understand who Sam is and everything with Arobynn hits so much harder, plus it sets up a lot of what explodes in Queen of Shadows. Reading it first won't break anything, but it loses its impact. Tower of Dawn follows Chaol on the southern continent and happens at the same time as Empire of Storms, so you can tandem read them, alternating chapters, or read one after the other. What you can't do is skip it, because Kingdom of Ash assumes you know everything that happens there. The series is complete. If you want to keep going in the Maasverse afterwards, Crescent City has nods to this world, so it's better to get there after finishing Kingdom of Ash.
Reading order
#0The Assassin's Blade
Sarah J. Maas
★★★★4/5
💕 Celaena Sardothien & Sam Cortland
Long before Endovier, Celaena Sardothien is sixteen and already the most feared assassin in Adarlan, raised and trained by Arobynn Hamel, the King of the Assassins' Guild. Across five novellas we follow her on missions that take her to negotiate with a pirate lord in Skull's Bay, to cross the desert to train with the Silent Assassins and back to Rifthold with more and more doubts about her master's orders. By her side is Sam Cortland, her rival in the guild, who slowly becomes so much more than that. It's the story of how an arrogant assassin starts growing a conscience, and of everything it costs her to defy the man who made her.
⚠ Content warnings
Graphic violence and murder, slavery and human trafficking, physical abuse and psychological manipulation by a mentor, torture, death of a beloved character, grief.
#1Throne of Glass
Sarah J. Maas
★★★★4/5
💕 Celaena Sardothien, Dorian Havilliard & Chaol Westfall
Celaena Sardothien has spent a year serving her sentence in the salt mines of Endovier when the Crown Prince, Dorian Havilliard, offers her a deal: be his champion in a competition to choose the King's Champion, the personal assassin of the very monarch who destroyed her world. If she wins, after a few years of service she'll be free. Closely watched by Chaol Westfall, the Captain of the Guard, Celaena trains and competes against thieves and mercenaries in the glass castle of Rifthold, until the competitors start turning up brutally murdered. Between an unexpected friendship with Princess Nehemia and what she starts feeling for both the prince and the captain, she'll have to figure out what's hiding in the castle before she becomes the next victim.
⚠ Content warnings
Graphic violence and brutal deaths, forced labor and slavery in the mines, whipping scars, monstrous creatures and gore, trauma from the loss of family.
#2Crown of Midnight
Sarah J. Maas
★★★3.5/5
💕 Celaena Sardothien & Chaol Westfall
Celaena won the competition and is now the King's Champion, but she's keeping a dangerous secret: she isn't killing the people the king orders her to eliminate, she's faking their deaths and helping them escape. As her relationship with Chaol becomes impossible to ignore, a mission brings her closer to a rebel group searching for the lost heir of Terrasen and puts her on the trail of the dark power the king uses to control the continent. When tragedy strikes someone she loves, Celaena will have to decide what she's willing to fight for, and what she's willing to become.
⚠ Content warnings
Violent death of a close character, torture, graphic violence, intense grief and desire for revenge, manipulation and betrayal, monstrous creatures.
#3Heir of Fire
Sarah J. Maas
★★★★4/5
💕 Celaena Sardothien & Rowan Whitethorn
Broken by grief, Celaena arrives in Wendlyn with a mission from the king she has no intention of carrying out. What she wants are answers, and to get them she has to face Maeve, the ancient Queen of the Fae, who sets one condition: she must train with Rowan Whitethorn, a fae warrior as lethal as he is bad-tempered. Between fights, shared scars and a fire magic she's spent years repressing, Celaena will have to face the past she ran from and the truth about who she is. Meanwhile, in Adarlan, Chaol and Dorian face their own threats, and in the mountains the witch Manon prepares to ride the wyverns of the king's army.
⚠ Content warnings
Deep grief, depression and hopelessness, drinking to escape, traumatic memories of her parents' death, demonic possession and experiments on people, execution of a character, cruelty and violence among witches, graphic violence.
#4Queen of Shadows
Sarah J. Maas
★★★★★5/5
💕 Aelin Galathynius & Rowan Whitethorn
No longer hiding behind Celaena, Aelin Galathynius returns to Rifthold with a plan as risky as it is personal: settle the score with Arobynn Hamel, rescue her cousin Aedion from the king's prison and free the magic that was ripped from the continent. To pull it off she'll have to ally with the people who betrayed her, get back a Dorian who's no longer in control of himself and count on Rowan at her side. Meanwhile, Manon starts questioning the blind loyalty her clan demands. This is the book where the lost queen stops running and starts collecting.
⚠ Content warnings
Physical and emotional abuse by a mentor, possession and total loss of autonomy, torture, sexual exploitation and forced prostitution in a main character's past, graphic violence, deaths, cruelty among witches.
#5Empire of Storms
Sarah J. Maas
★★★★★5/5
💕 Aelin Galathynius & Rowan Whitethorn · Manon & Dorian Havilliard
Aelin returns to Terrasen to claim her throne, but the lords of the kingdom don't trust her and war is already at the door. With the enemy's army growing, she'll have to go looking for allies wherever she can find them, from old debts to pirates, while chasing the pieces of a power capable of changing everything. Rowan, Aedion, Lysandra and Dorian are by her side, and on the other front Manon and Dorian form an unexpected alliance. Every choice has a price, and Aelin is willing to pay more than the people who love her could ever bear.
⚠ Content warnings
War violence and graphic battles, torture, character deaths, captivity, self-sacrifice, explicit sexual content.
#6Tower of Dawn
Sarah J. Maas
★★★★4.5/5
💕 Chaol Westfall & Yrene Towers
Chaol Westfall always defined himself by his loyalty and his strength as Captain of the Guard, but since the glass castle fell his body is broken and he has no certainty about who he is anymore. Together with Nesryn Faliq he travels to Antica, on the southern continent, with two goals: have the legendary healers of the Torre Cesme help him walk again and convince the khagan to join the war. The one tasked with healing him is Yrene Towers, a healer with wounds of her own and very little desire to help a lord of Adarlan. What they discover in the south will change the course of the war, and the two of them.
⚠ Content warnings
Disability and spinal cord injury, chronic pain, self-loathing, attempted sexual assault in a main character's past, a mother burned alive (memory), demonic possession, graphic violence, explicit sexual content.
#7Kingdom of Ash
Sarah J. Maas
★★★★★5/5
💕 Aelin Galathynius & Rowan Whitethorn
Aelin is Maeve's prisoner, locked in an iron coffin, enduring months of torture held together only by her will and by knowing that giving in would doom everyone she loves. While Rowan and his companions search the continent for her, Aedion and Lysandra try to hold Terrasen against an enemy that seems impossible to stop. Manon and Dorian, Chaol and Yrene, and every ally gathered across the previous books have to arrive in time for the final battle. It's the epic conclusion of the series, a thousand pages of war, reunions and sacrifices for the hope of a better world.
⚠ Content warnings
Prolonged and detailed physical torture, captivity, mutilation, large scale war violence, character deaths, possession, sacrifice, grief, explicit sexual content.
Reading with Matcha · Made with love by Ari