Romance

Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club

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This year at Sydney Writers Festival I attended my first TeenCon.

As we filed into the room, volunteers handed each of us a calico bag containing six books. Yes, six. Not three years old, let’s-chuck-‘em-out books, but ones published within the past year, many within the past six months. The first one I read was by Alison Goodman.

Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club was already on my radar,
as I love Alison Goodman’s writing.

However, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Descriptions in some reviews, including “Jane Austen meets Cassandra Clare”, sounded to me a lot like a Regency version of Clare’s prequel novels (The Infernal Devices). Instead I found a meticulously researched story with a heroine who is gutsy but consistent in her era.

The protagonist, Lady Helen, understands and complies with the proprieties of the time, believing in the limitations women have been socialised to accept, but though she resists the call of her growing knowledge, she steps up when it counts.

The Dark Days Club is best described as an urban fantasy
in Regency era London.

27074515The Dark Days Club begins in 1812, the second year of the Regency. Lady Helen lives with her aunt and puritanical, oppressive uncle as her parents, the Earl of Hayden and Lady Catherine, died a decade before. Rumours persist that her mother betrayed England to Napoleon.

When Lady Helen attends the palace to be presented before Queen Charlotte with other young ladies of genteel families, she is introduced to Lord Carlston, who reputedly murdered his wife three years past, though it could never be proven. So begins her entrée into the world of the Dark Days Club and the hidden perils from which it protects all of Britain.

Goodman has managed to walk a fine line.

She presents Lady Helen as a product of her age rather than an anachronistic modern feminist, while still portraying her as a strong character who doesn’t shrink from the difficult role she is being called to fulfill. Her initial reticence is a common part of any hero’s or heroine’s journey, serving only to underline her later determination.

26066905The story builds gradually, layer by layer, well-paced and well-crafted, and though this is the first in a series, provides a resolution that doesn’t leave the reader hanging.

This isn’t just a story with a Regency backdrop. Neither is it a Gothic novel, though it contains some Gothic elements. It’s a story of a Regency young woman, faced with secrets and responsibilities she’d rather not have, coming to terms with who she is in a society that has little tolerance for female non-conformity.

It’s also got some kick-ass action scenes.

I had high hopes for Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club, and it didn’t disappoint. I’ll be watching out for the second instalment, The Dark Days Pact, in January 2017.

Details
Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club
Angus & Robertson
ISBN: 9780732296094)
Pub: Dec 2015

Links
Alison Goodman’s webpage

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Tower of Thorns, by Juliet Marillier

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A wailing monster, a cursed land and a lady with secrets.

Add a bristling healer and her hulky companion with pasts that haunt them, and you have an enthralling story that sweeps you into its world of fey and mystery.

22567177Blackthorn is a healer and wise woman who was rescued from a death sentence by one of the fey. The conditions of her reprieve included not seeking vengeance against the chieftain who unjustly imprisoned her. With another of the prisoners, Grim, as friend and companion, she has built a new life in Dalraida.

When the Lady Geiléis arrives seeking help from the Dalraidan prince, it is to Blackthorn they turn. A monster has taken up residence in an old tower surrounded by impenetrable thorns on the lady’s lands. It howls from dawn to dusk and has cast a blight upon the whole land.

At the same time an old friend emerges with a tempting offer for Blackthorn, to bring her old tormentor, Mathuin the chieftain, to justice. She plans to go the lady’s lands and deal with the monster, then slip away from Grim and travel south to help in Mathuin’s trial. Once at Lady Geiléis’ lands, though, it becomes clear the lady and her servants are hiding something.

Tower of Thorns works as a stand-alone novel, but readers of the first book in the Blackthorn & Grim series, Dreamer’s Pool, will be eager for this second offering.

One of the strengths of these novels is the complexity
of the title characters.

They are defined by the things they have in common; their traumatic pasts that are being slowly revealed to each other and the reader, their time in Mathuin’s prison where they occupied opposite cells while enduring deprivation and abuse, and their understanding of the brokenness of one another.  Yet they also provide a contrast for one another.

Blackthorn is well-named. She’s prickly, bitter and prone to fits of temper, finding it difficult to be around other people for long periods. She’s also assertive,  as Lady Geiléis discovers once they are back on her land.

“Once Blackthorn decided to take the reins, it seemed she was blind to anything that might stand in her way.”

However, even though she finds the caring side of her healing work exhausting, she does it well. She sees herself with little to give emotionally but is so attuned to others that she can’t help empathizing and supporting them when they’re in need. Though she’s been scarred by her life, at the core she’s decent and good and does what she believes is right.

Grim sees himself with little to give in general, in spite of being able to turn his hand to anything from thatching and growing vegetables to training others in use of weapons. Though they conduct their relationship as companions, his devotion to Blackthorn never wavers. Where her focus stays on making Mathuin pay for his crimes, Grim’s is on Blackthorn and doing all his power to protect and provide for her. Discovering more of his story and who he his in Tower of Thorns was especially welcome.

17305016It isn’t easy to get stories about people with post-traumatic stress right, let alone in the context of medieval Ireland where old magic and the fey are forces to be reckoned with. Blackthorn and Grim have different ways of dealing with the traumas of their pasts, but each is authentic and rings true in the context of the time. The descriptions of Grim’s flashbacks and physical symptoms are particularly well done.

Tower of Thorns is told from three points of view; Blackthorn’s and Grim’s, both using first person, and the third from the perspective of Lady Geiléis in third person. Though the narrative style changes, it works well. Marillier’s prose flows, often lyrical, always grounded.

Not only does it feel as though this medieval Ireland of fey magic is real, but it should be real.

Though evil is there just as it is in our world, there is also a beauty and wonder in creation that has been lost for most of us. Perhaps books like this can challenge us to appreciate what we have and strive to preserve the beauty and natural wonders around us.

As I said when reviewing Raven Flight, I’ve been a keen reader of Juliet Marillier’s books since her first book, Daughter of the Forest, was published, so I tend to be well-disposed towards her books when I pick them up. So far I haven’t been disappointed. I’m already looking forward to the next in the Blackthorn & Grim series.

* I received an ARC from the author for review.

 Details
Tower of Thorns  by Juliet Marillier
Pan Macmillan Australia
ISBN: 9780451466990
Published: 3 October, 2015

Links
Juliet Marillier’s Website
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Cloudwish, by Fiona Wood

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Wishes aren’t real. Are they?

Vân Uoc knows the score. She’s a scholarship kid in an exclusive school where most of the other kids were born with silver spoons in their mouths. She’s under no illusion about fitting into the designer-clothes-and-huge-house set, but it hasn’t prevented her crushing on A-lister and rowing star Billy Gardiner.

24248906When a creative writing teacher hands around a box of items as prompts, Vân Uoc picks out a little glass tube with the word ‘wish’ on a slip of paper inside. Her wish? For Billy Gardiner to prefer her to everyone else. Afterwards she can’t find the glass tube, and Billy takes notice of her for the first time. Coincidence – isn’t it?

Though Cloudwish begins whimsically, the struggles Vân Uoc experiences between home and school feel very real. Being the only daughter of Vietnamese refugees, she feels the full weight of her parents’ expectations and the responsibility of being worthy of all the terrors they suffered and sacrifices they made so she could have a better life. Her day-to-day world is one of restriction and enforced study in their housing commission flat, carving out her small freedoms by bending the truth in translation to her barely-English-speaking parents and rationalising her dishonesty.

She doesn’t want anyone at school to know any of that, of course. She’s always tried to fly under the rader; life is easier if she’s invisible. With Billy’s sudden attention comes an unwelcome spotlight, and a few girls in particular aren’t too happy to see Billy’s affection straying outside home turf.

Billy really seems to like her, though, just for herself. She doesn’t believe wishes are real, but how else could this have happened? And can she live with that, if he hasn’t really chosen it?

Cloudwish is the story of a girl caught in the tension between two cultures. Fiona Wood immerses us in Vân Uoc’s world and we can’t help but feel the pressure from her parents and the otherness she experiences at school. The book begins with a quote from Alice Walker at Sydney Writers’ Festival:

I recognised myself in Jane Eyre. It amazed me how many white people can’t read themselves in black characters. I didn’t feel any separation between me and Jane. We were tight.

I love this quote and find it puzzling at the same time. The magical thing about stories is that they enable us to become other people, to understand who they are from the inside, to ‘look out through other eyes’ as Neil Gaiman has said. A good book is a leveller, making us all see from the same perspective, and I find it incredibly sad that some people have a racial barrier stopping that process.

The quote is perfect, though, because Jane Eyre is Vân Uoc’s hero and muse. “What would Jane do?” is a refrain throughout the story, and lovers of Charlotte Bronte’s classic will love the way Wood weaves snippets into Cloudwish.

While Vân Uoc seeks to be as brave as Jane, she suffers from the insecurities endemic in young women – or women in general – and many girls will identify with her doubts when the most popular boy at school pursues her. Is it a set-up? A joke? If not, it must be the wish.

Though most of the novel is written in third person, it perfectly fits the voice of its lead character. It’s a lovely touch that her name, Vân Uoc, means ‘cloudwish’ in Vietnamese.

I can’t help comparing Cloudwish with Looking for Alibrandi in the way it presents the life of a second generation Australian living between cultures. Reading it doesn’t feel like an education, only a great story, but afterwards I realised I understood a lot more than I had before I read it.

That’s a great book.

* I received an e-copy of this book for review through Netgalley

Details
Cloudwish by Fiona WoodNetgalley badge
Pan Macmillan Australia
ISBN: 9781743533123
Published: 1 Sept, 2015

Links
Fiona Wood’s website

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The Intern, by Gabrielle Tozer

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When I first heard this title my interest was piqued because I thought it was about a young doctor. Shows where my preconceptions come from.

9780732297053I soon found out it actually follows Josie, a first year journalism student who lands an internship with a fashion magazine.

The character of Josie had me hooked from the first page, moaning over her tiny bust in thesaurus-like list of euphemisms. Academic, ambitious, but with the fashion sense of a dairy cow and a tendency to embarrass herself, she isn’t happy that her mandatory internship is with a fashion magazine rather than a ‘serious’ publication. Without any choice, though, she throws herself into the one-day-a-week job with help from her oh-so-cool younger sister, Kat, to make sure she looks the part. Kat, the fashionista, is envious:

In her world, my inability to use a curling iron meant
I didn’t deserve the intern position.

At the job she’s faced with two other interns and a challenge; the best intern at the end of twelve weeks will win their own column in the magazine, complete with by-line and headshot, plus five thousand dollars. Josie, her mum and her sister have been doing it tough since her dad left, and that five thousand would go a long way.

Josie is a heroine who is smart and capable, but suffers from all the fears and lack of confidence a ‘not cool’ young woman would endure when she’s thrust into a unfamiliar world. She’s determined to make the most of her opportunities, but sometimes doesn’t realise what’s going wrong until it’s too late. What’s important about Josie, though, is that she doesn’t give up. She goes back and gives it the best shot she has, and ultimately that’s what counts.

Magazine

Image: Alex LaSpisa, Link: Flickr

There are a cast of interesting characters around her, most notably her popular, self-absorbed younger sister, and James, the flatmate of her cousin, where she stays the night when she works at the magazine, as she lives too far out of the city to commute. James provides the love interest – with the added complication that he turns out to have a girlfriend.

Having been a writer for many girls/women magazines, Gabrielle Tozer obviously knows how they tick and provides a believable setting without giving approval or judgement. The staff of the magazine have the usual mix that occur in any workplace; the generous and kindhearted, the bitchy and brash, and gradations in between. In other words, they’re human.

Tozer’s prose is engaging and witty. The story is told in first person with Josie narrating, and her personality and humour do all the work. In an early conversation with James, she’s trying to think of an answer when he asks about her most humiliating childhood incident. She thinks, both with humour and poignancy,

My life was an ongoing series of humiliating incidents wrapped
in a box of shame and tied with a bow of awkwardness.

It’s an easy read, but that doesn’t mean its light on the emotions. If you’re a teenager starting to do new things, or you remember what it was like going out of your comfort zone, you’ll identify with this.

The Intern has a sequel, Faking It, which chronicles the further adventures of Josie, and Gabrielle will have a new contemporary book (not about Josie) out in 2017.

Details:
The Intern by Gabrielle Tozer
Harper Collins
ISBN: 9780732297053
Published: Feb 2014

Links:
Gabrielle Tozer’s website

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Afterlight, by Rebecca Lim

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What would you do if a ghost turned up in your bedroom, giving you the terrors every night? What if she had tasks for you to do? What if it all led to a mystery that put your life at risk?

Sophie hasn’t had it easy. Her parents were killed in a motorcycle accident. and in the pain and loneliness of grief she threw herself at her long time crush and only managed to incur public humiliation. So in her final year she moves to a new school, and though her height and bright red hair quickly earn her the name “Storkie”, at least it’s a fresh start.

25215400Then the ghost turns up, who looks so much like her mother they could have been sisters. As her terror lessens, it becomes obvious the woman won’t leave until Sophie does what she wants. Instead of leaving her alone, though, things get more complicated. It all starts to snowball, even involving Jordan, the most popular and enigmatic guy at school. But it’s all a lot more dangerous than either of them were expecting.

Afterlight is a story of a girl trying to make sense of her life, while dealing with the afterlife. In Sophie, author Rebecca Lim gives us a protagonist who is grieving, lacking confidence and lonely, yet finds the strength to carry out the tasks the ghost sets for her, even though they’re way out of her comfort zone. The more involved she gets with the ghost, the more she comes to life.

There’s romance woven in, though Jordan serves more purpose in the plot that just the ‘hot guy’. Sophie has shut out everyone from her old school and is a loner in her new one. It’s only the ghost that brings Jordan and Sophie across the walls they’ve built around themselves.

The writing is tight and well-paced, witty and charming in many parts. It’s one of those books where the words disappear and all you see is the story.

The only thing I didn’t like about this book was the ending. I had that feeling, as you get closer to the last page, ‘How is this all going to be wrapped up in the space left?’ It wasn’t, of course. There is obviously more to come.

So, on one hand that’s great, because there’s more story. On the other hand, I was left on the last page, yelling, ‘Nooo!’

I can’t wait for the next one.

Details:
Afterlight by Rebecca Lim
The Text Publishing Company
ISBN: 9781925240498
Published: June 2015

Links:
Rebecca Lim at Text Publishing

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The Fault in Our Stars VS Zac and Mia #LoveOzYA readalikes

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I didn’t want to read The Fault in Our Stars.

Not because it was everywhere, not because it had been done before, and not because it was a teen romance written by a man, though if I’m honest those prejudices were part of the package. The real reason was because it was about teenagers with cancer.

11870085I have a thing about putting people with a life-threatening illness on a pedestal, and referring to someone’s “battle with cancer”. Why do we need to label it as a battle? Sometimes it’s as much as they can do just to hang on. Likewise, many stories about kids and teenagers with cancer have presented them as half-saints. This can shape people’s expectations of cancer victims, and put an even greater burden on them when they most need understanding.

So, this was my rather disparaging attitude towards The Fault in Our Stars. I’d seen the cover, read the blurb, saw it was on the New York Times best-seller list for ages, and turned up my nose.

Then one day I saw a Youtube video of John Green in Sydney. It resulted in a conversation with my daughter that went something like this:

Me: Did you know John Green had been in Australia?
Dtr: No! When?
Me: Not sure. There’s a video on Youtube of him, walking in Hyde Park, I think.
Dtr: Maybe he was here to promote The Fault in Our Stars.
Me: No, not that John Green. The one from Crash Course.
Dtr: Yeah, he wrote The Fault in Our Stars.
Me: No, not the old author guy. (Raises voice for emphasis.) The Crash Course guy.
Dtr: What old author guy? (Peering at me to determine the extent of brain damage.) The Dtr: John Green from Crash Course is the same one who wrote The Fault in Our Stars.
Me: You’re kidding.
Dtr: Nope.
Me: How did I not know that?
Dtr: No idea. But this particular win is going last me quite a while.

I felt stupid. How had I not linked these two John Greens together? And why had I assumed the novelist was some ‘old author guy’? Were my prejudices showing? (Coughs and decides that question is rhetorical.)

I enjoyed the Youtube Crash Course series, in which he teaches literature and history (and his brother, Hank, teaches various sciences). It’s upbeat, insightful, no crap, and demonstrates a love of words and learning. Could this guy have written a novel about teenagers with cancer that didn’t drive me insane? I went back to Youtube and sought out some interviews he’d done about the book.

The first thing I discovered was that he’d worked as a student chaplain at a children’s hospital for six months, during which he’d encountered a lot of kids and teens with cancer. He also often mentioned a young friend who’d had cancer. The thing that impressed me the most was the way he spoke about people with cancer – as people. Not with awe or pity, but that someone with cancer was just that, a normal person with normal interests and normal emotions, who has this horrible thing happening to them. I decided this teens-with-cancer book might be worth a look after all.

It was. Given all the hype that had surrounded it, I was surprised it more than lived up to expectations. The teenagers we get to know in The Fault in Our Stars, Hazel, Augustus and their friend Isaac, aren’t saints. They’re teenagers who have their own interests, hang out, laugh, get angry, take advantage of their ‘cancer perks’, and fall in love. Sometimes they try to be strong for their parents, but often can’t be. The love story is sweet but down-to-earth, shadowed always by the knowledge that it will never be a long one.

The writing is beautiful with many memorable phrases, many of which capture reactions that a diagnosis of cancer at a such a young age may induce. One that sticks with me is:

The world is not a wish-granting factory.

It’s such a succinct statement of bald reality, flipping the fairy tale on its head. Another beautifully prosaic line is:

The existence of broccoli does not affect
the taste of chocolate.

This is in relation to the oft-spouted rationalization that bad things have to happen in order for us to appreciate goodness, or “Without pain, how could we know joy?” This point has been discussed for centuries, but for those experiencing the ‘broccoli’ the discussion tends to become, if not irrelevant, then ridiculous. How does their cancer promote the experience of joy?

The Fault in Our Stars, though, is a romance at its core, though a tragic one and as unlike a Disney fairy tale as it’s possible to be while still allowing the romantic element to predominate. It deserves its success.

Since reading it, my prejudice against so-called ‘sick lit’ has been broken down to a large extent. If John Green has written about people with disease in a more realistic way, maybe other authors have too. I heard about Aussie author A.J. Betts’ novel Zac and Mia, and her job teaching kids and teenagers in an oncology ward seemed to place her in an excellent position to understand the realities of their lives better than most people. I’d been intending to read it for ages, but it wasn’t until blogger Danielle Binks posted her first #LoveOzYA Readalikes that I finally did something about it.

15757486Like Hazel and Augustus, teenagers Zac and Mia both have cancer. They have adjacent rooms in a Perth hospital, but don’t meet face-to-face at first because Zac is in isolation after undergoing a bone marrow transplant for his leukemia. Mia is loud and angry, but they end up communicating, first through taps on the wall, then through messaging in Facebook.

It isn’t a match made in heaven; Mia isn’t letting anyone close enough to help her, and Zac doesn’t have the energy to take the crap she dishes out.

Zac and Mia isn’t a romance. It’s a story about two young people who’ve had the stuffing knocked out of them, and how they react to each other. By telling the story from both Zac and Mia’s perspectives it allows us to see two very different people with some of the same problems, and the impact of their illnesses on their lives.

I found the portrayal of Mia particularly interesting – a girl who had based all her self-worth on being beautiful and popular suddenly thrust into a world of needles, medication, surgery, and vomiting. As she starts losing her hair due to chemotherapy, she goes ballistic. Her world is falling apart, and the people around her keep telling her she’s ‘ lucky’. No one seems to understand how devastated she is.

There is no sugar-coating, and both Zac and Mia have their struggles and successes, but it’s the differing perspectives that make Zac and Mia such a strong story. Zac’s life back on the family olive farm and tourist petting zoo, and his preoccupation with cancer statistics, play against Mia’s stormy relationship with her mother, refusing to tell her friends she’s sick, and going on the run in an attempt to get as far away from her life as possible. The reader understands why each of them feel the way they do, even when they oppose one another across a wide chasm.

So how does Zac and Mia compare with The Fault in Our Stars?

The Fault in Our Stars
 Zac and Mia
Setting Indianapolis and Amsterdam Perth and
W. Australian farmland
Reality of being a teenager with cancer Very good Excellent
Plausibility of events Good Excellent
Writing Excellent
(often poetic)		 Very good
Romantic elements  Major  Minor

It’s inevitable that Zac and Mia will be compared to The Fault in Our Stars, because it’s about a boy and a girl who both have cancer, and it came out the year after TFIOS. In many ways that’s a shame, because if someone picks it up expecting another John Green book with the same romantic feel they’ll be disappointed.

However, if it means Zac and Mia gains more attention, as it did with me, then it should be encouraged. It’s an excellent book in its own right. Don’t expect a love story, but do expect an insightful and emotional book about a strange relationship, amid the realities of being a teenager who’s been hit by the cancer bus.

Details

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Dutton Juvenile
ISBN: 9780525478812
Published: January 2012

Zac and Mia by A.J. Betts
The Text Publishing Company
ISBN: 9781922147257
Published: July 2013

Links

John Green: website, tumblr
John and Hank Green: Vlogblothers (Wikipedia), How to be a Nerdfighter (Youtube)
Crash Course: English Literature, World History, a list of other Crash Courses
A.J. Betts: website
Daniel Binks: Alphareader #LoveOzYA Readalikes

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The Kiss, by Lucy Courtenay

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Aphrodite kissed a mortal once by the light of this moon, many thousands of years ago. It drove him crazy. The next person that he kissed – boum. The craziness travelled like this …

So Delilah is told by the gorgeous French guy in the sand dunes on the edge of the Mediterranean. When their lips meet the kiss lives up to the hype.

Back home from holiday in the UK it’s time to get sorted for the new challenge of tertiary study, but life doesn’t seem to be going the way she plans. With the memory of that kiss lingering, she urges best friend Tabitha to live a little instead of settling down with new boyfriend Sam, which only ends up making them both miserable. Her carefully saved cash has been used up way faster than she realised, so she has to find a job to make some more. The guy  at the bar where she’s hired is hot, but every girl’s eye is on him, and even if he seems interested in her, how can she trust anyone after what happened with her ex?

25617446Besides, if the Aphrodite’s kiss thing is true, the first person she kisses will be crazed by it. Does she want someone just because of a kiss? Not that she believes in it …

The Kiss* is a romance where circumstances and personalities conspire to keep both the two main characters, Delilah and Jem, and the secondary couple, Tabitha and Sam, apart. Delilah is the first-person narrator, a well-rounded character with flaws that keep making difficult situations worse, but still caring, loyal and likeable. Tabitha and Jem have enough depth for the story, and there’s an interesting assortment of minor characters that add flavour. My personal favourite is Oz, Delilah and Tabby’s boy-friend from school, a little overweight and never popular with the girls, who becomes the go-to man for parties and what’s happening socially.

I wouldn’t describe this book as hilarious or a rom-com as the blurb says, though there is humour. The blurb also emphasizes the effects of Aphrodite’s kiss, and that’s only a small part of the plot – and could have been written out without changing a lot of the story. It’s really about transitioning into young adulthood and new relationships, and what’s important in those relationships. It does that well.

A subplot involves the staging of a musical production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, and there seems to be some inspiration from it in the story, including Jem’s friendship with a dodgy character and an incident where he sees Delilah in a situation and mistakes what is really happening.

The Kiss is well written and is a good read when you don’t want to work too hard, but still want a story with emotional engagement and a believable plot in a contemporary setting. You might get frustrated with the protagonist’s choices, but when doesn’t that happen? Courtenay keeps a number of subplots running, and brings them together well for a satisfying resolution.

Netgalley badge(Just don’t expect Aphrodite’s Kiss to really be the thing.)

  • I received an e-copy of this book for review through Netgalley.

Details
The Kiss by Lucy Courtenay
Hachette Children’s Books
ISBN: 9781444922868
Published: 2 July, 2015

Links:
Lucy Courtenay’s Facebook Page

Throne of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas

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An eighteen year old girl, a trained assassin, has been imprisoned for a year and is given a shot at freedom. This first book Sarah J. Mass’ series isn’t what I expected.

13519397Celaena Sardothien has toiled for a year in Endovier, a salt mine and prison so harsh that few survive more than a few months. Even at her tender age, though, her name was known and feared as the greatest assassin in the country of Adarlan before she was captured. Now she’s been given an offer; be Crown Prince Dorian’s entrant in a contest devised by his father, the king. Thirteen weeks, twenty-four contestants sponsored by nobles of the court. The winner will become the King’s Champion – or rather, his assassin. If she wins and serves for four years, she’ll have her freedom.

Celaena, (pronounced Sell-lay-nah, according to Maas’s website), naturally takes the offer, though she’s no supporter of the king. He invaded her country when she was small, and continued to conquer surrounding lands, committing atrocities with abandon. However, she has little choice; she must compete, or go back to Endovier to die.

A lot of the interest in the book is on the growing relationships Celaena has with Prince Dorian and the Captain of the Guard, Chaol, who first took her out of the mine to meet the prince and continues to serve him. They are both attracted to her, and she to them, though she is drawn more obviously to Dorian. She also develops a friendship with a visiting princess from a neighbouring country that has been subdued, and a there is a subplot of a jealous courtier who wants Dorian for herself.

This book has some great fantasy elements, and Celaena is an engaging heroine. There is a system of Wyrd magic which delivers some great moments and which promises more in the subsequent books. Maas has created a court of complexity and intrigue, and I particularly like the disparate attitudes of the king and prince

A couple of things surprised me about this book. One was how the contest was handled. The first test (one per week) didn’t occur until about a quarter of the way into the book, and I found myself impatient for it. It wasn’t that the rest was boring, because it wasn’t. I was just eager to get to the meat of it. The reader also doesn’t get to see all of the tests, as quite a few of them were skipped over in one sentence and I was a little disappointed with that. I understand that thirteen might be too many to write, but then maybe it would be better to have fewer tests, and maybe even fewer contestants? I just hate to miss out on the action.

The other thing that surprised me was Celaena herself. To have spent a year in what was essentially a death camp (including severe whipping), already the most famous assassin in the country by seventeen having been trained from the age of eight, I expected there to be some hardness in this character. I thought there would be defensiveness, emotional walls, evidence of trauma. Instead, the prince and his captain could have been picking her up from soccer camp.

A lot of the book is written from Celaena’s perspective, and it reflects the emotional and psychological tone of a young athlete rather than a trained killer who’d recently suffered torture and deprivation. There are a few references to the trauma she suffered when her parents were killed, and a couple of anecdotes of her training, but it doesn’t play out in her present psyche. When there’s a killer stalking the halls at night, she’s terrified and can’t sleep. She reads romances, wants to socialize, and gushes over puppies. I couldn’t buy it.

That said, though, I decided to put that aside. If you can accept the non-emotionally scarred, non-hardened, non-traumatized, sweet teenage super-assassin, it’s a good book. Once I entered into it, it’s a good read and I finished it quickly. I’m even looking forward to the next books, Crown of Midnight and Heir of Fire.

Throne of Glass is a good read. Just don’t believe the ‘A heart of ice, a will of steel’ tagline. She looks badass on the cover (great cover!) and her fighting skills are without parallel, but she isn’t a cold-hearted killer. She’s the assassin with compassion.

Details
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
Bloomsbury
ISBN:9781408832349
Published: Aug, 2012

Links: Sarah J. Maas Website
ACOTARoriginalReview of Court of Thorns and Roses
by Sarah J. Maas