Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Mass + UK ARC giveaway

About the book

Throne of Glass is the debut novel by Sarah J. Mass. It was published by Bloomsbury on 2^nd August and the book is 432 pages long. Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy for review.

Plot

In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake: she got caught.

Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice. Celaena must represent the prince in a to-the-death tournament—fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny. But will her assassin’s heart be melted?

What I thought

Even though I was still on my blogging break when this was released, I had still managed to hear about it over Twitter. Throne of Glass sounded exactly like the kind of book I would love so I couldn’t wait to read it.

I loved protagonist Calaena. She has spent most of her life being an assassin… until the day she was caught, captured and sent to a slave mine. Being an assassin, it became quite clear that Calaena was someone not to mess with. I instantly loved how quick witted and clever she was and that she wasn’t afraid to say what she really meant. As the book went on, I only grew to like her more and more. The tournament she has been entered in meant getting to know that she kicked ass with all different kinds of weapons and was as tough as steel. At the same time though, Calaena manages to show her feminine side which was a nice touch.

While at the castle, Calaena grips the attention of two men; Prince Dorian and Chaol. I have my personal favourite of the two but I could see the attraction with both men. Dorian, to begin with came across as selfish and annoying but he grew on me throughout the book. As he spends time with Calaena, his personality comes through more and more and I could see that he was actually a really nice guy. However, Chaol was the one who did it for me. He was sweet and caring, even though he tried to hide that at all times. He doesn’t underestimate Calaena and in fact, he knows exactly what she is capable of and that scares him. I wish that I had gotten to see more of Chaol though outside of the training etc.

Secondary characters help to make this story even more interesting. As Calaena is taking part in a tournament, there are other competitors, some of which we get to know better and some that we don’t. Princess Nehemia provides some great scenes with Calaena and also getting to know more about her was fascinating. As she was from a different part of the world that Sarah J. Mass created, not much is known about her but some things are revealed throughout the story. There is also the King who again, not much is known about. I wanted to know more about him and why Calaena hates him so much but I think that this is something to come in the next book.

My only problem with this book was the pacing. At times, it felt like nothing at all was happening. Calaena spends a lot of time sitting around reading (that could never be truly bad) but it was quite boring to read about at times. I think that the time could have been put to better use by having Calaena spend more time with Chaol or if more had been explained about the world that she lives in. There were some quite exciting moments in there too though so it wasn’t all bad in regards to pacing. The plot was interesting and different though and I really enjoyed discovering this new world that had been created.

Throne of Glass is a fantastic debut novel and now I can’t wait to read the next instalment.

If you haven't read this one yet, I'm giving away a UK ARC. The giveaway is international but you must be a follower of the blog to enter. All information will only be used by me to contact the winner and will be deleted when the giveaway ends. A winner will be picked at random on 7th September and they will have 48 hours to reply before a different winner is chosen.