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 exhilarating. 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.
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 exhilarating. 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 REVIEW
What can I say, it has been a very long time since I read a series and can honestly say that each and every book I loved and have given 5 stars to. I would 100% say that I could read this series over and over again, I certainly could read it over again now but I won't because my TBR is quite large so I had better start on something else lol!
What I loved the most about this series... The characters and the plot to name only two! I loved how the characters progressed with each story, some good and some not so good. You have Celaena who starts out in the slave mines in Endovier and then getting picked to take part in a contest to be the King's Champion (aka Assassin). With each story you see more and more of her story, find out some things that you didn't know before and sometimes there are things that you know but are waiting for other characters to find out which is equally as enjoyable. You then have the plot. Each story has its own plot line and hurdles to get over but the more and more you read of this series you discover that there definitely is a bigger picture and even though I have read all that is out at the moment in this series, I still get the feeling that there is more to come.
What I wasn't fond of with this series... Honestly, despite the fact that I loved this series there were points (more so in Queen of Shadows and Empire of Storms) where Celaena was a bit more 'brattish' than I would like her to be but at least there were characters around her that counterbalanced that trait and tried to keep her in line, sometimes winning and sometimes failing.
Recommended Reading... As there were novellas with this series I did wonder how I would fit them into the series. I ended up reading them all in one go and after I had read Empire of Storms. In hindsight, I think it would have been better if I had read them after Queen of Shadows, still all in one go but when re-reading this series at some time in the future I feel the novellas are best read before Empire of Storms.