Meet Celaena Sardothien. Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness.
In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake: she got caught.
Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice. Celaena must represent the prince in a to-the-death tournament- fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny. But will her assassin's heart be melted?
Yet another book that's been on my to-be-read list since forever. The countless times I've seen these books in book haul's on BookTube, I know I had to see what all the fuss was about and whether it was simply another "over-hyped book."
Well that idea went flying out the window within the first couple of chapters. You meet Celaena in the salt mines of Endovier- an assassin at the age of eighteen. She is given the opportunity by Prince Dorian to take part in a tournament in order to win her freedom, but its not as simple and easy as that. After she would win the competition only to win the position of the King's Champion for several years until she would be finally free.
The book follows Celaena's journey through the series of Test's, as well as her life in the royal court pretending to be a noble woman, whilst several mysterious events occur, intertwining magic and a world that had been long forgotten.
This book holds so much suspense, there's several occurrences going on at once and a lot of them you don't find out- I can only presume that these continue in the second book of the series. Its a unique story of its own and I raced through it a lot quicker than expected as it was simply impossible to put down!
I love Celaena's character, she's witty, gutsy and full of hope and determination. She's not just the famous Assassin of Adarlan a cold-hearted killer, she's also full of love. This becomes more apparent as she makes more of an acquaintance with Prince Dorian and her personal bodyguard and trainer- Chaol evolving into more of a love triangle than sparring partners.
One character I'm intrigued about to learn more as this series progresses is Princess Nehemia, she remained a mystery as to who she really was until the end of this novel and I'm still uncertain as to who she could also be.
A brilliantly written book that I would definitely read again and again, the characters were bold and important in their own light and I'm very excited to continue with the series! Definitely deserving of a five star rating :)
