Sunday 1 September 2013

WOW, WOW, WoW: Crown of Midnight by Sarah J Maas


Crown of Midnight (Goodreads)

Are the publishers serious? 
I have to wait a whole year for the next installment in the Throne of Glass series? 
You're kidding me, right? 
No? 
Dang! 
That's a shame. 
Honestly, there should be laws against that kind of reader abuse. 

Crown of Midnight is everything and more than I hoped it would be. The writing is good, the tension unremitting, blood flowed readily, and the plot moved along at a rapid clip, leaving me hanging on, unable to put the book down. I started reading in the afternoon and was still awake at one in the morning when Erin awoke having an allergic reaction. Although we ended up taking her to the emergency room, I still managed to read in snatches while we waited for the doctors to see her. Bad mother! Bad mother! Thankfully, she recovered well and we finally got to bed at six in the morning. After a three hour nap, I was up, back in the book. It's that good.

At the end of Throne of Glass (review), Celaena is crowned King's Champion. Now in Crown of Midnight she has to make good on her appointment as his personal assassin because his killing list comes at her thick and fast. Using skill and stealth, she juggles between his expectations and her own need to resist him and his commands. At the same time, she is still immersed in the secret - and deadly - world of magical beings, both dark and light, who try to control her allegiance. Throw the gorgeous Prince Dorain (who has his own challenges in this book) and the brooding, handsome Chaol Westfall into the mix, and it makes for a heart-stopping page-turner. For those allergic to love triangles, relax. This is not one of those.

Celaena is amazing in this book: brutal, fragile, tragic, bold, brilliant, misguided, flawed. She is without doubt my favourite heroine of all time. Amaranthe Lokdon from the Emperor's Edge series (reviews here and here) runs a close second. Sometime I will do a comparison between them.

Because this book is darker - much - than the others in the series (with the exception perhaps of The Assassin and the Underworld review here), there is less of her usual swagger and witty lines. This does not detract from the story at all, and I will safely say that this books has won it's place in my top ten reads of 2013. It's definitely a five star read. Here's to a loooong year of waiting for the next on the series . . . 

cheers
Gwynn
P.S. I bought this book with my own hard-earned cash.

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