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A Court of Thorns and Roses
Lose yourself in a world so sumptuous that you may never return home ... The tantalising start to a seductive fantasy series from global #1 bestselling author Sarah J. Maas for fans of E.L. James and Deborah Harkness
- Release Date
- 2020
- Length
- 451 pages
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
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Our Review
About the book
Nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods and is taken as payment to the faerie lands of Prythian by a masked High Fae lord. There she discovers a blight spreading across the realm and a danger that threatens both faeries and humans.
Our review
A Beauty and the Beast riff that starts slowly and finds its fire in its final third.
The opening of A Court of Thorns and Roses is a fairy-tale retelling in familiar dress: a poor, capable heroine, a cursed estate, a brooding fae lord. Maas sketches Feyre’s hunger and resentment well, and the Spring Court has a lush, sensory quality. Much of the first half, however, is atmosphere and slow-burn romance, and some readers will find the pace languid.
Everything changes once the true threat emerges and Feyre faces a series of deadly trials. The final act is tense, inventive and introduces characters who will dominate the later books, which is part of why the series became a phenomenon. Taken alone, this volume is the weakest of the main sequence: the prose is uneven and the central romance less compelling than what comes next.
What we loved
- A final act with real tension and stakes
- Feyre’s resourceful, stubborn survival instincts
- Seeds of a much bigger world and cast
Keep in mind
- The first half moves slowly
- Prose and dialogue can be clunky, with some repetitive phrasing
Read it if you like
Readers who enjoy fairy-tale retellings like Naomi Novik’s Uprooted or Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince.
The verdict
A flawed but promising opener; read it as the doorway to a stronger series rather than a destination itself.
