It’s no surprise to anyone who follows me on social media or has been subscribed to this blog for a few years that I absolutely love the A Court of Thorns and Roses series and raced through them when I came across them a few years ago. As soon as I saw A Court of Silver Flames (ACOSF) was ready I preordered it and was in countdown. Then there was a delay and guys it was driving me mad to try and avoid spoilers for a few days. I was also *kinda* nervous about how long it was after I didn’t really enjoy Crescent City.

I shouldn’t have worried. This book may have been a chonker but it was worth it and I could not put it down. Any spare moment I had I was reading, if I wasn’t reading I was thinking about it, if I wasn’t thinking about it I was talking to friends about it. Enough of my rambling, let’s get on with the review (no spoilers for the book, but there will be spoilers if you haven’t finished the original trilogy).

ACOSF takes a different approach. Instead of following Feyre, we are following her sister Nesta. Taken from the human world, turned into High Fae and watching her father murdered in front of her is a lot for anyone. Nesta’s answer isn’t to weep, it’s to react in fury – shutting out those around her with drinking and dancing and nobody’s going to stop her. Until they do. Feyre and Rhysand have had enough. Nesta is plucked from her life and moved away to give her space and time to heal – you can image she is absolutely furious. One of the other perspectives is from Cassian as he works to try and help Nesta, even when it’s constantly thrown back into his face.

You will probably have seen online there is a lot of sex in this book. A lot. Jokes have been going around this is pretty much the whole plot and it’s definitely not. While Maas certainly knows how to write a scene that will make you need a cold shower after, it’s done in a way that works for the characters and the novel.

In fact, this is a book that is about trauma, PTSD, self hate and what it can take to heal – including the ugly parts of healing, those that many of us don’t want to talk about. You can tell when reading that there is an understanding that Maas has about the level of darkness Nesta faces. This is something that Maas has alluded to since, reflecting on some of her own experiences.

What I enjoyed most about this book is that we get to understand both Nesta and Cassian, who they really are themselves rather than just in relation to the inner circle. We learn about how and why they came to be who they are on a much deeper level.

There was only one point that I didn’t like, I can’t say what it was because but it involved Feyre and Rhysand, it’s not their story but I found their part of the plot to be a bit weak until right at the end – but it’s minor compared to the rest of the book.

I don’t think it will surprise anyone that I gave this 5 stars. It also got me out of a hell of a reading slump too – a 750 page book, who’d have thought it. If you enjoyed the original trilogy you need to pick this up – you won’t regret it.