Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Synopsis (Goodreads)

The queen has returned.

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 has embraced her identity as Aelin Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen. But before she can reclaim her throne, she must fight.

She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die for her. 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.

The fourth volume in the New York Times bestselling series continues Celaena’s epic journey and builds to a passionate, agonizing crescendo that might just shatter her world.

My review:

So I’m almost back to having to wait for ToG7 but rereading this series has been amazing. Queen of Shadows was no different.

This book focused more on Aelin getting her revenge on the two men who ruined her life. There are a few others and she dealt with them as well. Aelin returns to Rifthold to kill the King and her former master, Arobynn Hamel. When she arrives she learns that the king has her cousin, Aedion and plans on executing him as the entertainment at Dorian’s birthday. This is obviously a trap for her but this girl was not named Ardalan’s assassin for nothing. While she carries out her plans Aelin makes a lot of discoveries, like the scary nee creatures the duke and the king are creating and also the truth of what really happened during that war many years ago.

I was dying for magic to be freed and see the aftermath of it and Maas delivered on that end too.

I loved everything about Aelin in this book. The plotting was insane. Even more so because she always chose to reveal her plans at the last minute. It was time for her to avenge her family and Sam and also finally move on from what happened with Sam so this book was definitely necessary for the series to go on. Aelin starts building her court and from the looks of it, it is going to be an interesting court indeed.

When Lysandra showed up again (you might know her if you have read Assassin’s Blade) I still didn’t like her. I’m happy she finally put herself to good use though. It was good to know that there is a heart in there and what she did for Evangeline, although hard to swallow was truly heroic. The world these people are living in is a really bad one. I don’t think I would survive it.

I didn’t like that Rowan was supposed to stay in Wendlyn while Aelin went about her plans alone. This already felt like a repeat of when Aelin left Chaol going to Wendlyn. I was relieved when Rowan ignored those orders. I still do not like his temper. I get it that he wants to protect Aelin but the guy wants to kill anyone who looks at her the wrong way. Cousins fighting is very normal and it annoyed me whenever he wanted to pounce on someone for saying anything against her. This territorial fae male bullshit is really annoying.

In HoF Manon’s storyline wasn’t that great. It was just a lot of brutal witches and their evil codes. This book really made her stand out. I still don’t know what her eye colour means and why the valg hate it but I guess she is vital. That first encounter with Aelin was everything I hoped it would be and so much more. That fight was so good I was actually wondering how they were going to survive it.

I also think Asterin is the only level headed witch here. Can we please make Asterin the wing leader. The one thing I hated about Manon was her cowardice. She knew what her matron was doing was wrong but was too scared to do anything about it. Asterin wanted to do something about it and I respected her for it.

I don’t know if most of you remember this but the name Elide came up once or twice in HoF. We finally get to meet her and the last ten years haven’t been pleasant for her. I liked her from the very beginning and yes this girl knows how to put herself in sticky situations. It’s like a gift.

Kaltain from ToG also shows up again and for those who didn’t like her…you might just reconsider. I would never wish that fate on anyone.

If there is one bad thing I can say about this book is Dorian’s part in it. I am a huge Dorian fan and having him suffering like that was not cool. It meant he was just a puppet and I didn’t get as much of him as I wanted. The one part when he was back to his old flirty self was one of my favourites.

Maas’ world building in this series is really amazing. Erilea has a rich history and she put in a lot of information on how everything works. The witches have their own system as well as the Fae. It’s not too hard to remember so that is great as well. I don’t think I have ever come across another fantasy book which is this detailed.

We really needed a good ending. Most books in this series end on a OMG moment and the change was refreshing. I know war is still brewing but it gave me hope that despite all the insane revelations in this book, Aelin might still be able to pull it off.

So this book is really big and there are a lot of things that take place from the revenge, Aedion’s rescue, the scary creatures being created in Morath ( Maas can be very dark at times). I can’t possibly cover it all as there are a lot of important details, comedic scenes, sad scenes. It’s all just mind-blowing. This is a must read. Some things…you just need to experience them for yourself.

I really hope you guys enjoy or enjoyed this book as much as I did. Let me know what you think in the comments section!

Xx fayetino

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