Back in May, I put the Throne of Glass series on hold at the library; it took until July for the books to start becoming available, but shortly after that book became available, Crown of Midnight was ready to read. I had to start reading it right away, and I think I liked it better than Throne of Glass. Since this is the second book in a series, this review may contain spoilers for the first book.
As we begin this novel, our heroine, Celaena Sardothien, is now the king’s champion. The king has been asking her to kill enemies of the realm for a while now. Not too far into the book, however, you realize that Celaena is keeping a secret about these assassinations…
Meanwhile, Celaena is getting closer to Chaol. At the end of the last book, Celaena decided to break things off with Prince Dorian, giving the excuse that she didn’t think it was appropriate for the king’s assassin to be dating the crown prince. While reading the first book, I didn’t get the impression that Celaena was that into Chaol, but in this book things dramatically shift.
But not all will remain rainbows and lollipops for the king’s assassin. There are forces at work in the kingdom that were hinted at in the first book, and we find out more about them here. Celaena’s most recent assassination assignment leads her to a group that may be trying to overthrow the kingdom… but are they on her side? Well, let’s just say that you don’t want to piss the king’s assassin off. In this book, you get to see quite a bit of Celaena’s badassery.
Even though magic was supposedly banned in the kingdom years ago, we learn in this book that plenty of magic remains. Crown of Midnight reveals more magical secrets, both of the world, and of some of our main characters. Because the king has banned magic, these secrets can be very dangerous.
This series is like an onion: the farther you get into the book, the more is revealed about the characters and the storyline that you need to find out answers to. Throughout this story, we find out more about Celaena’s past. The king’s assassin definitely has some secrets that she wouldn’t want to have exposed.
The book concludes with a nice set-up for the next story. There are no nail-biting cliffhangers, but you’ll want to find out what happens next to these characters. I’m looking forward to Heir of Fire becoming available at my local library!