You need to make two big choices: first, whether to start with The Assassin\u2019s Blade, a collection of prequel novellas, or the first full-length novel, Throne of Glass. Then later, you need to decide whether to read books six and seven consecutively or simultaneously (i.e., the \u201ctandem read\u201d).<\/p>\n
In making this choice, it\u2019s helpful to understand why The Assassin\u2019s Blade exists. Maas posted the original draft of her reimagined Cinderella story, then titled \u201cQueen of Glass,\u201d on FictionPress.com in 2002. It became very popular, and in 2008, Maas removed the story from the site to pursue a book deal. She was successful, but reworking the story into the first few Throne of Glass books was a long process. As Publisher\u2019s Weekly reported<\/a> in December 2012, the novellas were released to satisfy fans anxiously awaiting her debut novel:<\/p>\n [Maas] admits to feeling terrified that the online fan support \u201cwould all go away\u201d during the yearlong process of revising and submitting her work to prospective agents, but signed with Tamar Rydzinski (Laura Dail Literary Agency) in 2009, and gained the interest of editor Margaret Miller at Bloomsbury in 2010. Concern for waiting fans led, in spring 2012, to the publication of four prequel e-novellas set in the\u00a0ToG\u00a0universe.\u00a0<\/p>\n Four of the prequel novellas were published as e-books<\/a> in the months leading up to the release of Throne of Glass in August 2012. After the release of the second TOG novel, Bloomsbury packaged the four prequel stories into a single book, along with a new novella. These five stories were published in print as The Assassin\u2019s Blade in March 2014.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear. For years, Maas\u2019s website recommended reading The Assassin\u2019s Blade first<\/a>, according to Reddit users. Around 2024, the FAQ<\/a> on her website recommended reading it third. SarahJMaas.com was recently revamped again, and now it just directs readers to consult her publisher\u2019s reading-order guide. This is what Bloomsbury says<\/a>:<\/p>\n We recommend reading in publication order \u2026 which means you read\u00a0The Assassin\u2019s Blade\u00a0after\u00a0Crown of Midnight.\u00a0The Assassin\u2019s Blade\u00a0is a collection of prequel novellas that take place before the events of\u00a0Throne of Glass, and the novellas feature characters and locations that appear in later books in the series \u2014 so it\u2019s helpful to read before moving on to\u00a0Heir of Fire! It\u2019s also ok if you would rather read\u00a0The Assassin\u2019s Blade\u00a0first, though, as it won\u2019t spoil anything for you.<\/p>\n Disregard the reference to \u201cpublication order,\u201d as we just learned most of the Assassin\u2019s Blade e-books came out first.<\/p>\n My hot take: Read The Assassin\u2019s Blade first. I followed the SJM website\u2019s advice to read the prequel third and found it hard to connect with Celaena\u2019s character at the start of the Throne of Glass novel because she\u2019s weirdly cocky for no apparent reason. The events of The Assassin\u2019s Blade take place immediately before Throne of Glass, and her emotional journey makes more sense if you read her story in chronological order.<\/p>\n But like Bloomsbury says, any order is probably fine as long as you read the prequel before book four, Heir of Fire. Read through the first few pages of Throne of Glass and The Assassin\u2019s Blade and see which book grabs you.<\/p>\n Empire of Storms, Tower of Dawn, and Kingdom of Ash are the last three books in the series. Empire of Storms ends on a huge cliffhanger for Celaena and most of the main characters. Tower of Dawn is about a male character\u2019s quest to a faraway land during the same time period, with an almost entirely new set of characters. Some readers dislike this guy, find Tower of Dawn boring, and are anxious to find out what happens to Celaena & Co.; thus, the tandem read was born.<\/p>\n In my opinion, the tandem read just makes things unnecessarily complicated. But if you feel the need to read two nearly 700-page books simultaneously, this TikTok from @emmahalbrook explains how to do it:<\/p>\n Is it a weird choice to devote the penultimate book in your series about a badass female assassin to a male character many readers dislike? Sure. To explain it in Star Wars terms, imagine Han Solo is frozen in carbonite, but you have to watch a whole movie about C-3PO plotting with the Rebel Alliance before Return of the Jedi.<\/p>\n However, Tower of Dawn is extremely important to the rest of the story, and you may actually wind up loving the main character (or at least appreciating him and loving some of his new pals).<\/p>\n Keep reading \u2014 maybe for several books? Sorry! The series was marketed as YA, and you really feel it in the first few books. Fans often explain this by saying, \u201cShe wrote it when she was 16!\u201d That\u2019s only partly true: Maas started working on the story as a teen, but by the time she had heavily revised it into her debut novel, she was 26. For whatever reason, some find the beginning of the series clunky.<\/p>\n The good news: Each book is better than the last. Several major, beloved characters don\u2019t even appear until halfway through the series, and there are twists that will make you want to throw your book across the room (in a good way).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You need to make two big choices: first, whether to start with The Assassin\u2019s Blade, a collection of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[61935,8090,61937,6033,128,130,129,61938,61934,61936],"class_list":{"0":"post-133982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-acotar","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-crescent-city","11":"tag-culture","12":"tag-reading-city","13":"tag-reading-city-headlines","14":"tag-reading-city-news","15":"tag-romantasy","16":"tag-sarah-j-maas","17":"tag-throne-of-glass"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}