Your Next Favorite Book: Throne of Glass Series |The Prequel and Book 1|

Last night I had book club.  I had never joined a book club before moving to Houston and I have no idea why.  Because let me tell you, talking about books that I love with other people who read and loved them is one of my favorite things.  Reading a book is so much more exciting when you have someone to gush with over how much you loved it.  Each month our book club picks a book to read and then we pick a restaurant to go to, to talk about said book.  We have books picked out for the next couple of months so I’m pretty excited!

The book we just finished has become one of my all time favorites.  And I actually think I’m going to have to buy the whole series because I know one day I’ll want to re-read them.  Yeah, I do that a lot.  Re-read books I like.   Anyone else do that?  Ok good.

I’m actually going to review the first two I’ve read and then I plan to review the others in the series as well.  🙂  Now on to the books!

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Goodreads Synopsis:  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.

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Goodreads Synopsis:  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 her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.

Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each 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 four years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she’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 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.

My thoughts:  Ok so first thing I need to point out is that Assassin’s Blade is actually all the novellas that the author wrote AFTER she wrote the first book in the Throne of Glass series, which is titled Throne of Glass.  Ultimately there are going to be seven books in the whole series but she has only written four of them.  The ladies in my book club (who are also teachers at my school) highly recommended reading Assassin’s Blade first because they said it explains a lot of the main character, Celaena’s back story, without giving anything away from the first book itself.  And boy were they right.  I honestly cannot imagine starting this series without having read the prequel first.  It really does explain some of the key events that drive Calaena in the first and second books.  I’m in the middle of the second book in the series right now, Crown of Midnight.  In fact, Assassin’s Blade reads just like it’s a whole novel, rather than a whole bunch of little stories thrown together in one book.  They follow each other and events in previous novellas are referenced throughout.

As for Throne of Glass, the characters are easy to fall in love with, the love triangle is very well done without being too unrealistic or predictable and there’s magic.  That right there had me sold on the books just from reading the back cover.  It also helps that it is set in a medical time period which I’m a big sucker for so you get some pretty great details on the clothes she get to wear.  Plus Calaene is an all around bad ass in my opinion.  I much prefer her to some of the other female leads in the more well known series out there like Hunger Games and Divergent.

Thankfully a new blogger friend of mine, Kristen from See You in A Porridge, has also read the books and she can confirm that they are amazing and that you should read them!

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I’ve recently joined a blogger book club that I am very excited to take part in.  If you love to read and are looking for a virtual book club to join then think about joining the one that Christy over at Planes,  Trains, and Running Shoes is starting.  She’s organized it through Goodreads and we haven’t yet chosen our first book so there is still time to join us! 🙂

Happy Reading friends!

Linking up with Jenn and Jess for What’s Ha-“Pinning” and Michelle from Blogs Like a Girl for her Reading Lately link up!