A Court of Silver Flames: Sarah J. Maas

We meet again!

Okay, I’m not going to lie. I was under the impression that this was the last book in the ACOTAR storyline and went on a spiel about it and then came back and changed it because it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be the end? And why did I tell you all of that instead of just changing it? Who knows. Here we go :)

Brief Synopsis:

Just over a year after the war with Hybern, things are not as kosher as one would hope. It mostly has to do with Nesta. Everyone else has, in some way, been able to pick up the pieces of their life and trudge on. Rhysand and Feyre have built a beautiful home near the river and (SPOILER ALERT SERIOUSLY I WARNED YOU) are beginning to grow their family.

Amren seems to be continuing what she started with Varian, Elain has come into herself and is working hard on her gardening, Lucien is working with Jurian and Vassa, Mor and Az are doing their soldier recon work, and then you have Cassian and Nesta.

Though it definitely seemed like Cassian had finally broken through Nesta’s cold, hard defenses when they were battling the King of Hybern together, things really went about 3,000 steps back when they came home. Not only did Nesta refuse any offer of a job from Rhysand and refuse to live with him and Feyre, she has successfully shut everyone else out of her life as well.

She’s spent the last year plus drinking every night, hooking up with a slew of random men and trying her hardest not to care about anything or anyone. The dreams that haunt her and the power that she’s terrified of won’t leave her alone if she tries, so she just doesn’t try anymore, but the family is fed up with her crap.

Cassian comes to her dinky, run-down apartment and tells her that Feyre is requesting a visit from her. This visit turns out to be an intervention of sorts, with Feyre, Rhys, Cassian, Amren and the others telling her that she can’t keep going the way that she is, especially when she charges her exuberant bill to them. She’s given an ultimatum: she can either cut the crap, go live at the House of Wind, working in the library with the priestesses, and training with Cassian each day to earn her strength back, or she can go and live back in the mortal realm.

Knowing that she has no way to deny either of these choices, she goes with the former, though she basically goes kicking and screaming. At first, she refuses to train with Cassian and swears that she’s going to eventually make it down the 10,000 stairs to the city to go back to her life of debauchery. What she doesn’t refuse is working in the library, where she actually finds some peace and an ally in the form of a beautiful young female named Gwyn.

I’m not even going to lie, at first I couldn’t stand Nesta and watching her hurt everyone around her. I agreed with Morrigan and wanted to just send her bony ass right back to the mortal lands to deal. She very, VERY slowly begins to get back to something that resembles a person that might give a crap about someone other than herself. Cassian realizes that she’s not totally unwilling to train, but she won’t train around others that would scorn her. Private lessons bring her out of her shell more and she even realizes that the women around her could benefit from them. She starts to reach out, though everyone is hesitant at first.

The two women that join her first are Gywn and Emerie, a beautiful Illyrian shop owner from Windhaven. Cassian is struck by the fact that Nesta would want to reach out to other struggling women and offer them this extra form of protection in themselves, a release and a comfort. I mean, it’s no secret that those two have some crazy sexual tension and there are some scenes in this book that could rival any that I’ve read before. It definitely gets steamy af. But their romance is like everything else in Nesta’s life at this point: a slow build.

If everyone thought that the conflict of the fae and humans was totally over, either, they’re out of their minds. Briallyn, the queen that Nesta pretty much stole everything from when she stole from the Cauldron, is not going quietly into the night and wants to get them all back. She’s formed an alliance with both Beron the loser (my nice name for him) and Koschei: the Bone Carver’s sibling that also owns the queen Vassa. Essentially, they each have their own evil end goal here: Briallyn wants to get them all back, Beron just wants to make as much as he can and not ally with the good guys, and Koschei thinks that the Dread Trove will have a way to finally free him from the lands he’s been cursed to for so long.

The Dread Trove are three weapons forged by the Cauldron, the Mask, the Harp and the Crown. Though they’ve been lost for ages, that’s what everyone is looking for, and they all believe that Nesta, with her powers and having also been Made by the Cauldron, can find them. She’s very hesitant, though she knows that if she doesn’t do it they’ll try through Elain. However, her first attempt is unsuccessful and only results in a rush of her power being unconsciously pulled out of her. Rhysand and Cassian both have to save her from her nightmare, and Rhys reveals what her power is at last: (SPOILER) pure death.

The first foray into finding the Trove has them visiting The Middle, where the Weaver lived. Nesta is joined by Cass and Az, who warn her that the water may still have Kelpies in it, and that they’re very vicious fae that will drag her under and feast on her slowly. When they’re attacked by a legion from the Autumn Court, Cassian flies Nesta to a tree and begs her to stay there until they’re done fighting the Autumn Court off. But c’mon, we all knew that wasn’t going to happen. Nesta ends up drug under the water by a Kelpie and it feels like going into the Cauldron all over again. She feels helpless and is sure that she’s going to die, so she desperately calls on her power and it leads her right to… the Mask. Though she’s been warned against the danger, Nesta is desperate and throws the Mask on.

The water is full of corpses, as it was once a resting place, and they come alive and bend to her will, tearing the Kelpie apart. At this point, Cassian and Azriel have fought off the Autumn Court soldiers and have two of them in their custody. They realize that Nesta is gone and Cassian begins to absolutely panic. They’re both blown away when she comes out of the water, Mask on, with an army of the dead and the Kelpie’s decapitated head in her hand.

The journey forward isn’t much better for a while. Cass takes Nesta to a blacksmith and she works on some of the weapons herself, but the blacksmith takes them to Rhys and says that they are cursed and he won’t use them. Unwittingly, Nesta put some of her powers in the weapons, which hasn’t been done in many years. They know they have to hide Nesta’s powers or many will come after her. When she finds out that some in the group still believe she can’t be trusted, she becomes livid and confronts Amren, with Feyre coming to the rescue.

However, Nesta is so angry she reveals another truth: Feyre’s baby has wings, and with her normal fae body, it’s highly likely that she’s going to die during childbirth. She’s so devastated that in her anger she released this, and with a threat of her life from a livid Rhys, her and Cassian take off into the Illyrian mountains. Cass is as mad at Nesta as the rest of them and Nesta has basically gone comatose, wanting her life to be over so she can stop feeling all of the painful things that has happened to her and all of the painful things that she’s done to others. What she doesn’t know is that Cass is taking her to a place of healing, and she finally collapses and confesses everything inside of her to Cassian.

She’s not fully healed, but hey, it’s a start. The second foray into finding the Trove doesn’t go any better than the first, partly due to the fact that it is in the Prison. They find the Harp, but Briallyn has possession of the crown and she sees Nesta taking it. Cassian and Nesta both barely make it out alive, with some of the Autumn Court and one of the evils that Cassian had first put away both battling with them. Nesta kills Lanthys with her newly Made sword, which should be impossible, but honestly it just didn’t surprise me.

At this point, with the two soldiers they had already captured and another group attacking them, it is time to tell Eris and see if he’s double-crossing them, or if it is the work of Beron. The solstice has arrived and they are having a ball in the Hewn City, inviting Eris and planning to seduce him with Nesta and earn his trust. But Cassian hates this plan and does not know if he can go through with it.

When the plan works a little too well and Eris decides that he wants Nesta’s hand in marriage, Cassian throws caution to the wind and shows/tells Nesta just how much she really means to him and that it was never just hooking up. Not for him, and not for her, whether she likes to admit it or not. It seems like they’ve finally created the alliance that they’ve both always secretly craved: one full of love. However, Nesta is afraid to finally accept the Mating bond because, in her mind, nothing about her would be human anymore.

A big fight between the two of them regarding this has her fleeing to Windhaven for the night, staying with both Emerie and Gwyn at Emerie’s, though Gwyn hasn’t left the House or the library since she was saved by Azriel. So, of course everything goes wrong. The girls are stolen in the middle of the night to participate in the Rite, which is the same battle that Cass, Rhys and Az had to fight through to become Illyrian warriors. Basically think Hunger Games, but for the fae. Their powers are turned off, they have to totally fend for themselves, and try to make it to the head of the mountain without dying within a handful of days.

Cassian is furious when he discovers this, but all of their hands are tied: if they interrupt the Rite, whoever interrupts it and whoever they saved will have a death warrant out for them. Even Rhysand can’t interfere. So, the girls have to battle their way back to one another and through the terrors that the other Illyrian fae males want to wreak on them, not to mention the monsters that reside in the wild at night.

In the meantime, Eris has disappeared and it seems that Briallyn has captured him. Cassian and Az race to save him before she can bewitch him with the Crown, but they are unwittingly the ones that are taken, and Cassian rushes her to the mountain top, where the girls have gloriously fought their way through, and Nesta is standing off against Emerie’s bastard of a cousin. She thinks that she’s been reunited with Cass, but he’s under the Crown’s influence, and Briallyn orders him to kill her. The Mating bond is stronger than that, though, and at the last second Nesta uses her power to toast her old crone ass.

The drama isn’t over there y’all: Feyre’s in labor and it isn’t going well. Also, Rhys and Feyre made a pact that if one of them dies, they both do. So, things aren’t looking good. She tells them they have to cut the baby out of her, even though it means certain death for all three of them. Panicking, Nesta combines the powers of the Trove at the same time and begs for them to be saved, promising she’ll give her powers back if she can just spare their lives.

Following this, she agrees to be Bonded with Cassian, though she says she wants an elaborate ceremony, because did you all really think that my girl Nesta was going to change THAT much?

My Rating:

10/10. This was easily my favorite out of all of them (thus far? Does anyone know and can tell me yay or nay about more books?) and I don’t get why it got so much hate. I know Nesta was a genuine pain at first but I love her fire, and I feel like the scenes with her and Cassian make Feyre and Rhys look… a little tame. I also loved the new characters, Gwyn and Emerie, so much.

Devastation Rating:

I’m going to say 7/10 for some of the carnage and the birth scene alone (even though, you know, it ends the way it does). Otherwise, I genuinely expected to have my heart ripped out more by these books. Not that I’m complaining.

Favorite Quote(s):

“Your power is a song, and one I’ve waited a very, very long time to hear.”

“For it was music between their souls. Always had been. And his voice was her favorite melody.”

My Overall Take on the Series:

This might be such an unpopular opinion, but here goes: so far with all of SJM’s novels, it goes like this for me: Crescent City, ACOTAR, Throne of Glass. I said it. And I really liked these ones.

Check out my Goodreads (Traci Bishop) and/or my Storygraph (bookishmamabish) to see what I’m currently reading and to see a good chunk of the books I have already read. My Instagram can be found on the home page and I will share whenever a new post is up as well!

Until next time <3