Waiting on Wednesday: The "Is It Time Yet?" Edition

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking The Spine and is a fun way to see what books other bloggers just can't wait to get their hands on!

I decided to do 2 picks this week, books that I've been dying to read for what feels like 293482023948023 years but in fact has been less than one. How slow time goes when I'm desperate to return to beloved characters! I don't have to wait much longer though, and sometimes even re-reading the synopsis for the hundredth time is enough to tide me over for another week (or day, whichever), so today I'm going to stare at the beautiful covers and pretend that tomorrow is release day for these two ;-)

All that I need to say about these is YES.

ICE LIKE FIRE

Snow Like Ashes #2

Sara Raasch

Young Adult/Fantasy

Releases October 13th from Balzer + Bray

From Goodreads:

It’s been three months since the Winterians were freed and Spring’s king, Angra, disappeared—thanks largely to the help of Cordell.

Meira just wants her people to be safe. When Cordellan debt forces the Winterians to dig their mines for payment, they unearth something powerful and possibly dangerous: Primoria’s lost chasm of magic. Theron sees this find as an opportunity—with this much magic, the world can finally stand against threats like Angra. But Meira fears the danger the chasm poses—the last time the world had access to so much magic, it spawned the Decay. So when the king of Cordell orders the two on a mission across the kingdoms of Primoria to discover the chasm’s secrets, Meira plans to use the trip to garner support to keep the chasm shut and Winter safe—even if it means clashing with Theron. But can she do so without endangering the people she loves?

Mather just wants to be free. The horrors inflicted on the Winterians hang fresh and raw in Januari—leaving Winter vulnerable to Cordell’s growing oppression. When Meira leaves to search for allies, he decides to take Winter’s security into his own hands. Can he rebuild his broken kingdom and protect them from new threats?

As the web of power and deception weaves tighter, Theron fights for magic, Mather fights for freedom—and Meira starts to wonder if she should be fighting not just for Winter, but for the world.

Amazon • B&N • Goodreads

QUEEN OF SHADOWS

Throne of Glass #4

Sarah J. Maas

Young Adult/Fantasy

Releases September 1st from Bloomsbury

From Goodreads:

Everyone Celaena Sardothien loves has been taken from her. But she's at last returned to the empire—for vengeance, to rescue her once-glorious kingdom, and to confront the shadows of her past . . .

She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die just to see her again. She will fight for her friend, a young man trapped in an unspeakable prison. And she will fight for her people, enslaved to a brutal king and awaiting their lost queen's triumphant return.

Celaena’s epic journey has captured the hearts and imaginations of millions across the globe. This fourth volume will hold readers rapt as Celaena’s story builds to a passionate, agonizing crescendo that might just shatter her world.

Amazon • B&N • Goodreads

Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses

A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES
A Court of Thorns and Roses #1
Sarah J. Maas
Young Adult/Fantasy
416 pages
Bloomsbury
Available May 5th
Source: ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.

As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow grows over the faerie lands, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

MY THOUGHTS
Every once in a while when we emerge from a story that's held our undivided attention for so long, blinking blearily at our reality, we find we can focus on nothing other than the desire to return to the first page and start the experience all over again. A Court of Thorns and Roses is very much that type of tale; one that leaves us physically unable to pick up another book for days following the turn of the last page given that doing so would be acknowledging our time with Feyre and Tamlin is temporarily over.

Ms. Maas has the uncanny ability to write characters who are a study in contrasts; a beautiful mess of conflicting attributes that resonate so thoroughly they become unforgettable in a very short amount of time. Feyre is gorgeously strong physically and mentally, providing for her crippled father and two older sisters as they sit comfortably in the tiny cottage they call home and complain about the speed at which Feyre puts food on their table. While confident in her hunting abilities, she's hugely self-conscious with regard to her intelligence, her inability to read and write something that causes her no shortage of shame. What she sees as a flaw though is but one of the many threads that bind us to her emotionally, able to feel her every joy and pain as if it were our own.

Tamlin, though more of a mystery to us given we spend all our time in Feyre's head, is as stunningly layered as she is, comprised of more shades of gray than we would have imagined possible prior to reading. At his core he could be described as good or even heroic, but like Feyre, when challenged and backed into a corner he's capable of making decisions that have brutal consequences for those around him. His relationship with Feyre is deliciously tense, the two of them tiptoeing around one another for much of the first half, trying to figure out how to make the best of a situation that's difficult for all involved. They spare us the drama we might have anticipated given Feyre's essentially kidnapped and forced to live in a world unfamiliar to her, instead proving they are not above apologizing when they make a misstep and constantly choosing to compromise when they could so easily lash out.

While Feyre and Tamlin are highlights, Ms. Maas supports them an extraordinary cast of secondary characters, each with shadows behind their eyes that whisper beseechingly to us as we slip further and further under the spell of this magnificent world, letting us know they have secrets to tell and scars for us to examine more closely. We're left in a very satisfying place, the events of the final hundred pages clearly going to have epic repercussions on this world and its inhabitants, but those repercussions remain firmly on the horizon as we flip the final page. A Court of Thorns and Roses is Ms. Maas at her very finest, giving us a glimpse at an imagination that impresses us more fully with each book we're gifted.

Rating: 5/5

Find Sarah:

 

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This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

Review: Heir of Fire

HEIR OF FIRE
Throne of Glass #3
Sarah J. Maas
Young Adult/Fantasy
565 pages
Bloomsbury
Available September 2nd
Source: ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Lost and broken, Celaena Sardothien’s only thought is to avenge the savage death of her dearest friend: as the King of Adarlan’s Assassin, she is bound to serve this tyrant, but he will pay for what he did. Any hope Celaena has of destroying the king lies in answers to be found in Wendlyn. Sacrificing his future, Chaol, the Captain of the King’s Guard, has sent Celaena there to protect her, but her darkest demons lay in that same place. If she can overcome them, she will be Adarlan’s biggest threat – and his own toughest enemy.

While Celaena learns of her true destiny, and the eyes of Erilea are on Wendlyn, a brutal and beastly force is preparing to take to the skies. Will Celaena find the strength not only to win her own battles, but to fight a war that could pit her loyalties to her own people against those she has grown to love?

MY THOUGHTS
Heir of Fire returns us to beloved heroine Celaena Sardothien, but the girl we find in the opening third of this book is a very different girl from the one we've known thus far, stripped of her arrogance and torn from the anger and rage that have acted as the mooring line tethering her to the mortal coil. Without the beautiful ferocity of her vengeance driving her forward, we're left with a Celaena who embodies vulnerability, the number of times she's been beaten down finally totaling one more than she's seemingly equipped to handle. Where a Celaena who's lost a bit of her fight may sound like someone who would frustrate, instead we find we've never wanted to embrace her more, her gorgeous humanity proving that weakness is not in the simple needing of help, but rather in needing it and refusing to ask for it.

Celaena is well aware she's hit rock bottom in the wake of Nehemia's demise, and because she's cognizant of her emotional state, she takes the lifeline thrown to her by Rowan and begins to lift herself up out of the darkness. It's not to say she meets Rowan with open arms and a smiling face, oh no, even in a bad place she's still got a spark of her fire, and she and Rowan embark on an epic battle of wills that's as amusing as it is breathtaking. Ms. Maas could have taken an easier route with this story, the separation of Celaena and Chaol at the end of Crown of Midnight and the introduction of Rowan in this third installment acting as the opening notes of an all-too familiar melody, but thankfully she doesn't rob characters or readers of the tale they deserve. In place of romance, what grows between Rowan and Celaena is the type of friendship every single person who reads this book yearns for–absolute and unwavering when each of them needs an extra shoulder to carry some of their weight.

Some readers may find themselves a touch disappointed given the fact Chaol and Celaena are not reunited at any point despite the impressive length of Heir of Fire, but their separation is nothing if not necessary. Chaol's fear of who Celaena truly is would have only compounded her own reluctance to embrace her heritage, dragging her down rather than building her up as she so desperately needs in the wake of Nehemia's loss. Ms. Maas instead makes the brilliant decision to keep them apart, allowing each of them room to grow into who they need to be without the other's expectations or reservations limiting the scope of what they can achieve. We of course ache for the two of them to find their way back to one another and overcome the nearly insurmountable obstacles facing them as a couple, but we can only smile in anticipation as we read, knowing the wait will more than worth it in the end.

Overall, Heir of Fire is a stunning addition to this series, the slowness of it in parts granting readers the time to explore the fabric of each character, getting to know them in a way action sequence after action sequence wouldn't allow us, and then, when we've just been lulled into a sort of reflective quietness, we're smacked in the face with a reminder of how brutal the King of Adarlan can be. Our hatred for him burns brighter than ever before in the closing chapters, but through the blinding haze of our rage is the comfort that comes from knowing that Celaena, now ready to accept every part of herself, will never let his actions go unanswered. She will come at him with everything in her overwhelmingly impressive arsenal, and I simply cannot wait for the moment when she returns her every loss to those responsible tenfold.

Rating: 5/5
 

Find Sarah:

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This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

Review: Crown of Midnight

CROWN OF MIDNIGHT
Throne of Glass #2
Sarah J. Maas
Young Adult/Fantasy
420 pages
Bloomsbury
Available Now
Source: BEA 2013

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul 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.

Then one terrible night, the secrets they have all been keeping lead to an unspeakable tragedy. As Celaena's world shatters, she will be forced to give up the very thing most precious to her and decide once and for all where her true loyalties lie...and whom she is ultimately willing to fight for.

MY THOUGHTS
Crown of Midnight is a story that manages to escape all the pitfalls so common in second installments, improving upon the very best elements of Throne of Glass and completely doing away with the aspects that were perhaps more of a struggle for those (like myself) who didn’t have the benefit of Celaena's history as outlined in the prequel novellas. Ms. Maas gives us Celaena at her finest in this sequel, her brutality as much a focus as her vulnerability; the two a swirling combination of character perfection that has her stealing a part of our hearts and forever locking it away in the pages of her story.

Where the Celaena of Throne of Glass seemed to be a young woman who bought a bit too much into her own press, touting her accomplishments and her abilities to any and all who would listen, the Celaena of Crown of Midnight is closer to the woman found in the pages of the prequel novellas, her mind every bit as sharp as her blades and her heart surprisingly open despite all that’s happened to her. Previously, we couldn’t help but grimace at her arrogance, but in this newest book we do nothing but smile at her confidence and pity all those who continue to underestimate her in terms of both her lethality as well as her humanity.

Celaena is a beautiful tapestry of scars–physical and emotional–and they are on display in all their painful glory in Crown of Midnight. Our hearts ache for her as past and present collide, history delivering a brutal sucker punch of repetition to send her reeling once again, but though she staggers with every blow she’s dealt, she never once stays down. Despite the villainous king she serves and the court of liars and social climbers surrounding her, she stays true to who she is–good and bad; blackest pieces and brightest facets–always seeking to help those around her even when they question her motivations and judge her actions. She doesn’t play games with Chaol or Dorian, following her heart even as memories of the love she let herself have once before plague her, and doing so in such a way as to mitigate the damage done to the one whose affection she cannot fully return.

With the love triangle safely put to bed with minimal angst and drama, and the over-the-top ego of Throne of Glass reduced to a charmingly inflated sense of self, the best parts of Ms. Maas’s ability to tell a story are able to shine through, making us immeasurably happy and devastating us in turn until we’re nothing but an emotional mess staring dumbly at the last page wishing futilely for more. Crown of Midnight is gritty and glorious, giving us a protagonist who is a hero in the end but often a villain in the means used to achieve it, and there’s absolutely nothing more satisfying than walking side by side with her as she journeys through every shade of gray.

Rating: 4.5/5
 

Find Sarah:

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This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

Review: The Assassin's Blade

THE ASSASSIN'S BLADE
Throne of Glass #0.1-0.5
Sarah J. Maas
Young Adult/Fantasy
448 pages
Bloomsbury
Available Now
Source: Finished copy from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Contains all five novellas.

Celaena Sardothien is Adarlan's most feared assassin. As part of the Assassin's Guild, her allegiance is to her master, Arobynn Hamel, yet Celaena listens to no one and trusts only her fellow killer-for-hire, Sam. In these action-packed novellas - together in one edition for the first time - Celaena embarks on five daring missions. They take her from remote islands to hostile deserts, where she fights to liberate slaves and seeks to avenge the tyrannous. But she is acting against Arobynn's orders and could suffer an unimaginable punishment for such treachery. Will Celaena ever be truly free? Explore the dark underworld of this kick-ass heroine to find out.

MY THOUGHTS
This review is going to be a touch different from my standard essay-style reviews (I can’t help it, the essay format was drilled into me in high school and college and it’s just how my reviews normally come out when I start typing!) because I need to preface this review with a confession. Throne of Glass, book one in this series, was a huge challenge for me. I didn’t care much for heroine and self-proclaimed badass assassin Celaena until the very end, mostly because there was a lot of talking about how amazingly deadly and how deserving of her reputation she was, but yet I saw no evidence of it on page. There were hints of past jobs done here and there, but for the most part Celaena seemed to have a high opinion of herself unsupported by action.

I was told by many that I really should have started with the prequel novellas before tackling Throne of Glass, but it seemed strange to me that I would need to start a series prior to book one in order to care for the main character. When the opportunity to review all five prequel novellas presented itself however, I thought it was more than time to give Celaena a second chance.

I couldn’t be happier I did. The young woman in the five novellas comprising The Assassin’s Blade is the Celaena I expected to find in Throne of Glass. The Celaena I'd been hoping for all along. She still has an undeniably inflated ego, but over the course of these stories it becomes clear she has a heart to match it in size, and she more than proves her ability to put her fists and her blades where her mouth is. She has moments where her young age gets the best of her and a perceived slight causes her to lash out with some unnecessarily sharp words, but she shows growth and maturity with each novella, and I repeatedly found myself with an evil grin on my face whenever someone made the mistake of underestimating her physically or mentally.

Each novella gets progressively darker, building up to something those who’ve read only the synopsis of Throne of Glass would pick up on through the notable absence of a certain character, but even knowing it was coming didn’t fully prepare me for the delivery of such a brutal blow. The cold young woman who seemed as though her ego could use a check or ten in Throne of Glass suddenly made much more sense; the loss she struggles with at the end of The Assassin’s Blade leaving her with her guilt and her former sterling reputation–dulled from its previous shine–wrapped tight around her like armor against the person who betrayed her. It’s with vengeance and a need for retribution to match Celaena’s own that I closed the back cover of The Assassin’s Blade, eagerly anticipating the moment when the man who cost her everything will inevitably find himself on the lethally right side of Celaena’s blades.

Rating: 4/5

Find Sarah:

Website • Facebook • Twitter • Goodreads • Amazon

This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.