Celaena has left Adarlan. She’s on a mission for the King. Since she is no longer under his watchful eye, she can focus her efforts on solving the riddles that have been plaguing her since she entered the castle at the beginning of the champion competition.

This book took me a little time to get into and I’m wondering if it had something to do with reading the prequel after the first two books in this series and then reading this one. I did enjoy reading the prequel at that point in the story so I have no regrets there, I’m just making an observation. I do think it made me less motivated to pick up the story where the second one left off. It took me a minute to remember the ending of book #2 and the emotions I felt when I finished it and connect it to the beginning of this story. Celaena is super mad at the beginning of this book so there was quite a bit of profanity in the first 100 pages of the book. It was enough that it made me think that maybe I didn’t want to keep reading the series. But then I got to the part where she simmered down a little bit and there were far less swear words. Around the same point in the book I became way invested in the story and I started loving it. We follow a few different characters in different places so it rotated between the three storylines and I really enjoyed that. We are introduced to new characters and I have to admit that I absolutely love Rowan! Never saw that coming… seriously… I didn’t see anything coming in this book and I think that made it really fun to read. I’m still a huge fan of Celaena. I can’t wait to see what happens next!