Throne of Glass (Book 1)by Sarah J Maas

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 kings council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she’ll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. 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. (goodreads.com)

This was probably my most anticipated novel of 2012 - at least the most anticipated Debut novel of 2012. From the second I heard about this book many, many moons ago (when it was called Queen of Glass), I have had it on my radar to pick up the second it was published. I think I originally found out about it through twitter when someone I followed linked to Sarah J Maas and announced her book deal, or something like that. I can't even remember now, but it feels like it was a million years ago. The fact that this is close to epic/high fantasy for YA as you can get, I knew it needed to be on my shelves.There weren't many authors or books that I wanted to stalk at BEA this year, but once I found out there would be ARCs and a signing for this debut novel I was stoked. Yes, stoked. Hell0, 1980s! I owe my acquirement of this book to Kristi who kindly stood in line for me as I was off in a panel during BEA. I was so cranky that even though I only wanted to actually do a handful of things at BEA - THEY WERE ALL AT THE SAME TIME! GAH! Kristi had also wanted to do something at this exact same time, so I told her not to worry about Throne of Glass, that I would just suck it up and wait a few more months to buy it myself. But luck was on our sides and she was able to get me a signed ARC. Yay!Because Throne of Glass isn't coming out until August, I waited FOREVER to start reading it. FOREVER being five weeks after I got it, of course. I figure since I didn't get this from a publisher specifically for review purposes, I could break down a read it. Heck, it comes out in 3-ish weeks, that's close enough right?Internet, this is one heckuva fantasy book. I was actually sad when it was over because I didn't want to stop reading. Celaena was a strong and more-or-less likable character. I will admit it took her a while to grow on me, but mostly because I wasn't sure what sort of character she was supposed to be. That actually ties in to one of the few issues I had with the story, which I'll explain a little later on. I very much enjoyed the secondary characters as well, my favourite being Chaol, the Captain of the Guard, seconded by Nehemia, the Princess and finally, Dorian the Crown Prince.There's even a bit of a love triangle in this book, folks, but it's one that DID NOT BOTHER ME. Not one bit and you know me and love triangles. We're like mortal enemies. The relationships in this story (both of the romantic and platonica kinds) actually blossom before your eyes. You can see why someone will feel the way they do about another. You actually FEEL the romantic tension between Celaena and Chaol. The only time I found the attraction a little off was between Dorian and Celaena because I didn't feel they spent quite enough time together. It was more that he was fascinated by her because she was the wrong girl for him. Part of me felt like once the chase was over he'd grow bored. I'm very curious how these relationships will progress in the next books.This book had a little bit of everything, which sometimes makes it a little too much; but for the most part I thought this was a great fantasy novel and just what I'd been needing in my life. The Tests that each of the potential King's Champions had to endure were not as detailed as they could have been. I actually thought those tests would be the main focus of the story, but surprisingly they were not.The one problem I had with the story was how I felt like we were sort of tossed into things in a way that assumed we should know about them already. There were a few references made by the protagonist or the way certain events were phrased that made me feel like I must have missed a book because I wasn't catching on. Celaena's attachment to Sam (which she mentions a few times) wasn't filling me with sympathy or, well, anything because I have no idea who the heck Sam is so how am I supposed to know she has an attachment, or regrets, or grief. It didn't flow properly in my opinion, however it wasn't  a huge part of the story so it was easy to ignore when it wasn't right in front of me.BUT!After I wrote about finishing and loving this book on twitter I was informed that there are three novellas that preface this story and they explain how Celaena ended up where she did and why she has this reputation and HOPEFULLY they will tell me about this Sam character. BONUS they are actually $0.99 right now for the Kobo and..er..well... I might actually have an eReader in the house right now. I will blog about that eventually, but it's a shared one with my husband and well... maybe it's handy to have when there are eBook novellas for books? (I can get the Michelle Zink ones, too!)So, bottom line (if you made it this far) is that Throne of Glass is certainly worth picking up if you love high/epic fantasy and think there should be MORE OF IT IN YA! (Also, it doesn't really read like a YA book, so I think older -female-fantasy fans would enjoy it. Think, Poison Study by Maria V Snyder, or Graceling by Kristen Cashore.Of course now I have that "oh, crap, I read this book a month before it comes out which means the wait will be EVEN LONGER for the SEQUEL!" problem. Woe is me. Truly. Impatience is one of my middle names. ;)One more thing before I stop writing this epically long post - I loved this book SO MUCH that when I saw the UK edition had a wicked beautiful cover? I bought it. Yep. As soon as I finished this signed ARC and saw on Goodreads the cover for the UK edition, well, I HAD to buy the UK one. It's rare I get two copies of books. Enough said.Throne of Glass

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