Title: Kingdom of Ash
Author: Sarah J Maas
Publisher/Year: Bloomsbury USA 10/23/18
Length: 860 Page
Series: Throne of Glass #7
Overview
Aelin has risked everything to save her people-but at a tremendous cost. Locked within an iron coffin by the Queen of the Fae, Aelin must draw upon her fiery will as she endures months of torture. Aware that yielding to Maeve will doom those she loves keeps her from breaking, though her resolve begins to unravel with each passing day…
With Aelin captured, Aedion and Lysandra remain the last line of defense to protect Terrasen from utter destruction. Yet they soon realize that the many allies they’ve gathered to battle Erawan’s hordes might not be enough to save them. Scattered across the continent and racing against time, Chaol, Manon, and Dorian are forced to forge their own paths to meet their fates. Hanging in the balance is any hope of salvation-and a better world.
And across the sea, his companions unwavering beside him, Rowan hunts to find his captured wife and queen-before she is lost to him forever.
As the threads of fate weave together at last, all must fight, if they are to have a chance at a future. Some bonds will grow even deeper, while others will be severed forever in the explosive final chapter of the Throne of Glass series.
My Thoguhts
OH. MY. GOODNESS! what we have here is a finale to end all finales! a perfect culmination of a series that has been so amazingly written, picturesque, detailed, full of emotion, tension, twists and turns. And i’m actually ok with it being over because i don’t know how we could continued.
Like the summary says, we start off this final installment with Aelin being trapped in iron bonds – which suck the power out of her while she’s tortured by Maeve and Cairn. Aelin proves to be stronger than anyone imagined, surviving through all that they do to her and never revealing where the wordkeys are. She wavers though between hope and resigning herself to death because no one knows who is going to find whom and what that means for Terrassen and survival.
At the same time we have Rowan, Gavriel, and Lorcan all trying to find Aelin but also rally allies to fight Erawan and Maeve (and the Valgs). we spend much of this book wondering if they will make any progress either way and succeed.
Parallel yet some more to that is the Dorian and Manon piece of things. Manon and the Thirteen are no longer part of their clan, they’ve been exiled because of several reasons if you recall, and they are now in search of the Crochans – who are supposed to be mortal (or immortal) enemies, but whom Manon also should be their queen. The alliance with the witches and Dorian is an interesting one, however we did see that there was a bond between Manon and Dorian in the last book, so it’s definitely fun / intriguing to see where that goes. There’s a humbling factor in this story line with Manon and she needs to find a way to temper her personality and humble herself in order to win over the Crochans for their support and numbers. There are strong personalities in both clans that makes for some combative interactions.
And lastly, there’s the mix of Aedion, Lysandra, the Khaganate and everyone else. They are defending Orynth, the land of Terrassen itself, and they are both the final battle and the ongoing front line for everything. If they fail, then the land is lost, but it’s an impossible task because while they are skilled, they don’t have the numbers and the powers that the Valg do.
So much of this story is comprised of parallel story plot lines – all converging at the final battle. While we hope and wish for a happy ending, there’s no chance that everyone that we have come to love will make it in the end, and the sacrifices that are made really resonate. With the exception of one death, i think that all had been validated and feel as though they were worthwhile, but one still hits me the wrong way.
I don’t know how our author Ms Maas does it. To read this story and see the vivid picture in my mind of every interaction, character, scene, battle – it’s amazing. There are so many details that could have been written any other way and still told the story – but the picture that’s been painted here is so thorough and complex that i’m in awe.
When i started this series, i was pulled in because of the underlying story here – of a girl who was trying to find her identity after being in limbo her whole life after her family was murdered. She’s led into the light by a prince who has been under the thumb of a controlling family – and both ultimately want the same thing -freedom. When that’s taken from them, from the world even through a race from a different world, well, they are forced to partner in an entirely new way to get that freedom.
They encountered so much adversity, so many different types of beings, and yet when there’s one common goal to pull people together, we see that maybe there can be hope. Even when people deceive them, when they lie and trick and just all around are not honest. Partnership, fighting for a common goal, against a common enemy shows how strong you can be and how perhaps there’s reason to partner instead of fight.
We’re left in a place with a full resolution of things that have happened throughout this series – and while not entirely happy or as expected, things have been laid out in a way that does everyone justice. I hope you guys read this one, and if you haven’t started this series PLEASE DO!