Reading With Tyler

Name: Queen of Shadows
Series: Throne of Glass #4
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Format: Kindle
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance, High/ Epic Fantasy
Noted Tropes: Slow-Burn
Spice Rating: None

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Review:

Queen of Shadows is book 4 in the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas. As a result, there will probably be spoilers for the books that come before. Spoilers for Queen of Shadows will be hidden as normal. I am so damn late to the game on this one… and I know it, but into the review…

“Let’s go rattle the stars.”

OKAY! That’s a damn good book!!! I thought April peaked immediately with The Book of Azrael, but then I read Queen of Shadows!! I was wrong. I was wrong. Either April is going to be a month of bangers, or I’m going to have a bloody hard time picking a book of the month because WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE QUEEN OF SHADOWS?

My big complaints about the previous books have been, 1 that the POV’s chop and change with no indication of who is talking at the start – sadly that doesn’t get any better… And 2, that the first half feels bland! Like there is nothing going on! Well, Maas said hold my beer because between Heir of Fire and Queen of Shadows I decided to choose evil. Maas went from throwing ALL of the twists and fast paced action at the end of the book, to spacing it out from page 1. Queen of Shadows showed massive improvements and because of that I was hooked all the way through dammit!

I finished Queen of Shadows at 2am, proceeded to squeal about how damn good it was to my partner (who had waited up to see how I would react) and message Kayleigh on Insta just to let her know… again it was 2am she was never going to respond to me. But still, I couldn’t wait to tell her! We left off Heir of Fire with shit having gone down. Namely, Aedion being arrested (sentenced to execution), Dorian being collared (and that had my heart racing – I felt sick!), Sorscha being dead and Chaol fleeing the castle… All while Aelin is prepping to start wrecking shit as she makes her way back to Rifthold… I had no idea where Queen of Shadows was going to go. All I knew is that if it was done well, I was going to be so damn tense… I was right to assume that I wasn’t going to be well whilst reading Queen of Shadows.

The character development in this book was top tier! I was not Manon’s friend, nor Chaol’s… Dare I say after the events of Queen of Shadows, I may be converted? Chaol still has some work to do, but Manon is definitely in my good books. Our friendship with Rowan and Aelin only got better with the addition of Aedion which I didn’t expect to be writing. But I loved the banter that came out of the three of them being united. And LYSANDRA! New favourite character? I can’t help it. I adore her. I didn’t think that would happen either. The found family that is being set up is so damn good. Like I feel like I would go to war for these characters, let alone whether they’d go to war for each other (which, they would).

I don’t know what changed between the writing of Heir of Fire and the writing of Queen of Shadows, but I am completely and utterly on board and I cannot wait to find out what happens next in this story because as far as I know Queen of Shadows marked the start of this series getting damn good. And I am here for it. Is anyone else on this SJM journey this year too?

Queen of Shadows, without a doubt is a 6 star book. There is no question in my mind that this is the best book in the series so far. It was bloody brilliant.

It was downgraded from 6 star to 5 star after I kept reading the series… Sometimes this happens! In the moment it feels like a 6 star but later you realise it wasn’t…

“But perhaps the monsters needed to look out for each other every now and then.”