A Court of Thorns and Roses: Sarah J. Maas

We meet again!

I read the Throne of Glass novels when I was in the throes of having contracted COVID in November of 2020. My book bestie (and just in general BFF) had lent them to me and on a whim, I had begun them, and I think by the time I was in the second novel, found out I had COVID. They got me through quarantine, and I also DEVOURED Crescent City. Now, I begin my foray into ACOTAR. Here we go :)

Brief Synopsis:

Feyre promised her harsh mother, while she was on her deathbed, that she would take care of her family in her wake. Years later, that’s all that Feyre has done. Promises mean something to mortals and she’s not about to break the most important one she’s ever made. Her family is all but useless – two sisters that are more interested with preening and being gentle than getting their hands dirty, even if it’s a difference between food and hunger – and a father that was injured some time ago due to debts and never recovered.

One night while Feyre is in the woods during the winter, desperately hunting for something to bring back to her slowly starving family, she comes across a doe. However, this doe is also being stalked by one of the biggest wolves she’s ever seen. Feyre is almost convinced it isn’t fae, since the wall keeps their worlds separate, and she’s desperate enough for the venison that she kills the wolf right after it takes care of the deer for her.

Proud that she’s able to feed her family for a few days and make some money off of the pelts, Feyre tries to put the gruesome memory behind her. That isn’t about to happen, though, and a fae beast shows up to her humble and ramshackle home to ensure that the treaty is held. This means that he’s taking Feyre with him to live with him in Prythian and there she must remain.

She is forced to leave her family behind and finds out that it was not a normal fae male that took her – it was a fae male of nobility by the name of Tamlin. The surprises don’t stop there. At first she thinks that all the fae she encounters wear the beautiful masks as a fashion statement. The truth is, after a party one night, a dark magic they call the blight swept through and magically enchanted the masks to the fae’s faces. They couldn’t take them off no matter how hard they tried, and have worn them for years.

Thinking there must be some way out of the treaty, Feyre tries to get close to Tamlin’s second Lucien. Lucien is brass and snarky, with a long scar down the side of his face. He’s quick to tell Feyre that her endeavors are hopeless and that she can’t work her way out of the treaty through any unforeseen loopholes: it’s ironclad.

When Tamlin finally assures Feyre that her family is safe and better off than they ever were before, she begins to understand that her promise has been fulfilled – without her there. Though she was so hesitant to accept any kindnesses from the fae before, she begins to slowly bond with both Lucien and Tamlin, not to mention her maid Alis. The bond with Tamlin is definitely more of a romantic bond than anything, though she works against it for as long as she can, knowing in her heart that she is likely just setting herself up for massive heartbreak.

One night, a special event is hosted called Calanmai, or Fire Night, which is a spring festival. Though Tamlin explicitly tells Feyre that she is banned from the festival, she chances it anyway. She ends up in a tight spot with some fae that she hadn’t met before and is saved by an absolutely breathtaking stranger.

Before things go any farther, Lucien takes her away from the festival and explains that Tamlin is essentially going to have to mate with another fae female that evening and that his animalistic side will completely take over. He says it’s best that Feyre stay far away from him because he won’t be himself and he won’t be able to resist forcing himself on her.

Feyre isn’t super good at listening to commands and ends up in the hallway late at night. She runs into Tamlin, of course, who does hit on her pretty heavily, even bruising her neck when he bites her, but resists going any further. However, from there, things are pretty much changed between the two of them and it’s no real secret that Tamlin is essentially courting her.

Everything changes when the handsome stranger she met at the festival shows up again and threatens Tamlin, Lucien and mostly her. He says some things that didn’t make a lot of sense to Feyre but she can tell that it’s serious. She finds out that the stranger is named Rhysand and that he serves Amarantha, who both Tamlin and Lucien seem to be pretty dang scared of. She gives him the name of a girl in her old village, too terrified to tell him who she really is.

Tamlin decides that he has to send Feyre back to her family on the mortal side before Amarantha can get to her and hurt her. They share one amazing, magical night together, and Tamlin professes his love for her. Upon her leaving, he does once more, but she’s too confused and heartbroken to say it back, even though it’s exactly what she seems to be feeling.

She gets home and sees that her family is so much better off than she could’ve ever imagined. However, her cold and calculating sister Nesta reveals that the glamour that Tamlin put over all of them to hide where she really was didn’t work for her, and she knows where Feyre really was this entire time. She even went to the wall to try and save Feyre but couldn’t find her way past it. This warms Feyre to Nesta in a way she never thought was possible and they bond. Feyre’s heart aches for Tamlin and the rest of the world she left behind, and when she finds out that the name of the girl she gave to Rhysand resulted in her family perishing in a fire and her missing, she knows that she has to go back to try and right wrongs.

When she arrives back, she finds Tamlin’s estate empty and wrecked. Alis is still there and she finally comes clean and tells Feyre everything: the curse put on them was by Amarantha, and Amarantha herself is the so-called blight. They were unable to tell her before because it was part of the curse, but many years ago Amarantha took over the seven regions and rules all very harshly. She also took a fancy to Tamlin many, many years ago and he rejected her, thus spurring the curse. She told him that he had seven years to find a mortal girl that hated fae and killed one of his own, and to have this girl fall in love with him and tell him so. It was Feyre, but she hadn’t actually said the words, and then was sent away.

Against Alis’s wishes, she goes Under the Mountain to try and save Tamlin, and Amarantha tells her that she killed the mortal girl slowly when she thought she was the one Tamlin loved. She tells Feyre she can take Tamlin and he can be free if she faces three trials of Amarantha’s over the course of three months, or answer a riddle. Feyre knows that she likely won’t survive these trials, but excepts. Over the three months she nearly dies more than once, and ends up making a foolish bargain with Rhysand: he’ll save her life, but she has to visit him one week a month… forever. Their agreement marks her physically and one whole arm and her hand is covered in a tattoo marking her as part of Rhysand’s property, pretty much.

Rhysand drugs Feyre every night and makes a mockery of her just to piss Tamlin off, but he has an end goal: if Feyre is successful, Tamlin’s power and fury will be insurmountable.

Now, I don’t want to give the ending away, but I will say that Feyre doesn’t exactly survive, but she’s also not dead. They defeat Amarantha and are free to go, but it all comes at huge costs, and Feyre leaves totally unsure of how she actually feels and what she actually wants.

My Rating:

7/10. Chefs kiss. I have absolutely loved this story.

Devastation Rating:

I’m gonna go with 7/10 here also, and with this being the first book, I imagine it’s going to get a LOT higher.

Favorite Quote(s):

“Once I’d dreamed and breathed and thought in color and light and shape.”

“I had never seen anyone so handsome – and never had so many warning bells pealed in my head because of it.”

“I wanted to fade into it, wanted the light of that sun to burn me away, to fill me with such joy that I would become a ray of sunshine myself. This wasn’t music to dance to – it was music to worship, music to fill in the gaps of my soul, to bring me to a place where there was no pain.”

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