The Ultimate Throne of Glass Reading Order Guide
If you are stepping into the world of Sarah J. Maas (SJM), you have likely already devoured the romance-heavy A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) and are now eyeing the intimidatingly large stack of books that is the Throne of Glass series. While ACOTAR is a romance with fantasy elements, Throne of Glass is a high-fantasy war epic that just happens to have romance in it. It follows the journey of Celaena Sardothien, a teenage assassin with a mysterious past, as she evolves from a broken prisoner into a queen who rattles the stars.
This guide breaks down every option, detailed plot summaries, and the logic behind the madness so you can choose the path that suits you best.
| Book | Tropes | Spice | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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The Assassin's Blade | novella assassin fmc enemies to lovers short stories | 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 | View |
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Throne Of Glass | deadly competition love triangle assassin fmc high fantasy +2 | 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 | View |
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Crown of Midnight | high fantasy assassin fmc love triangle hidden identity +1 | 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 | View |
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Heir of Fire | high fantasy assassin fmc hidden identity court intrigue +3 | 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 | View |
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Queen of Shadows | high fantasy vengeance hidden identity morally grey mmc +1 | 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 | View |
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Empire of Storms | high fantasy alliances witches epic quest +2 | 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 | View |
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Tower of Dawn | high fantasy enemies to lovers healing political intrigue | 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 | View |
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Kingdom of Ash | high fantasy war found family good vs evil +1 | 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 | View |
What Is The Throne of Glass Series?
Throne of Glass is Sarah J. Maas’s debut series, eight books long, and it is a very different beast to A Court of Thorns and Roses. Throne of Glass is a genuine high fantasy war epic that happens to contain some of the most devastating romance she has ever written. It follows Celaena Sardothien, a teenage assassin with a past she is not telling you about, as she claws her way from a prison camp to something rather more significant.
The Two Main Reading Orders
There are two main reading orders, and they give you genuinely different emotional experiences:
Option A: The Publication Order (Recommended)
This is the most popular method for new readers who want to be hooked immediately by the main plot.
- Throne of Glass
- Crown of Midnight
- The Assassin’s Blade (The Prequel)
- Heir of Fire
- Queen of Shadows
- Empire of Storms
- Tower of Dawn
- Kingdom of Ash
Why this one: you get hooked on the central mystery straight away, and by the time you reach The Assassin’s Blade you have spent two books hearing Celaena reference a past she will not explain. Reading the prequel at that point lands like a flashback rather than an info dump, and it does it right before those threads become load bearing in Queen of Shadows. This is also the order recommended by Bloomsbury, her publisher, and the order presented on sarahjmaas.com. If you want the closest thing to an author’s ruling, this is it.
Option B: The Chronological Order
To feel the most emotional impact through out the whole series, read the book in chronological order.
- The Assassin’s Blade
- Throne of Glass
- Crown of Midnight
- Heir of Fire
- Queen of Shadows
- Empire of Storms
- Tower of Dawn
- Kingdom of Ash
Why this one: you meet Celaena at sixteen, arrogant and untouchable and about to lose everything, before you meet her broken. Every reference she makes in book one to Sam, to Arobynn, to the salt mines, lands instantly instead of arriving as a mystery. The trade off is real though. The Assassin’s Blade is a collection of five novellas and it is a slower, sadder opening than a competition in a glass castle. Some readers bounce off the series entirely because of it. If you are new to SJM, I would gently steer you to publication order.
Every Book In The Series
Here is what you are actually signing up for, book by book.
0.5 The Assassin’s Blade
The story: Celaena Sardothien at sixteen, Adarlan’s Assassin, insufferably confident and entirely unprepared. You get her genuinely toxic relationship with her master Arobynn Hamel, her rivalries within the guild, and her first love, Sam Cortland. By the end you understand exactly how she ended up enslaved in the salt mines of Endovier.
The structure: five novellas, The Assassin and the Pirate Lord, the Healer, the Desert, the Underworld, and the Empire, telling one continuous story that runs right up to page one of Throne of Glass.
The vibe: heist stories with a slowly tightening noose. It is charming right up until it is not.
1. Throne of Glass
The story: after a year of hard labour, Celaena is offered a deal by Crown Prince Dorian. Compete to become the King’s Champion, serve four years, earn her freedom. She is moved to the glass castle, where she navigates court politics, a series of grisly murders, and the slow gravitational pull between charming Dorian and the very stoic Captain of the Guard, Chaol Westfall.
The vibe: The Hunger Games meets Game of Thrones, in a YA register. Competition driven, mystery heavy, and considerably lower stakes than everything that follows.
2. Crown of Midnight
The story: Celaena is the King’s Champion now, and she is not remotely loyal. By day she does his bidding, by night she is quietly dismantling him. A rebel movement is rising, and she is going to have to decide what she is willing to lose.
The vibe: darker, faster, and home to a twist roughly halfway through that changes what kind of series you are reading. This is where assassin fantasy becomes high fantasy.
3. Heir of Fire
The story: a wrecked Celaena travels to Wendlyn to reckon with her heritage and her magic, and meets Rowan Whitethorn, a Fae warrior who takes one look at her and decides to break her down to the studs. Meanwhile, back in Adarlan, we meet Manon Blackbeak, Ironteeth witch, wyvern rider, and eventual fan favourite.
The vibe: the world triples in size. This is the turning point, the book where the real story starts, and where Rowaelin begins its long, slow, agonising build.
4. Queen of Shadows
The story: she returns to Rifthold, and she is not the girl who left. And she has a list… Arobynn is on it. The King of Adarlan is on it. She pulls together old friends and older enemies for a run of high stakes heists and rescues.
The vibe: pure heist movie energy. The squad assembles, the swagger is immense, and the revenge is deeply satisfying.
5. Empire of Storms
The story: the war is properly underway. Aelin and her court sail to forge alliances with pirates, illusionists, and things considerably older than either. The romance peaks here. So does the danger.
The vibe: open door romance, enormous stakes, and a final chapter involving an iron box that the fandom has not recovered from and will not be recovering from.
Important: this book takes place at the same time as Tower of Dawn.
6. Tower of Dawn
The story: Chaol Westfall and Nesryn Faliq travel to the Southern Continent, to Antica, where Chaol is seeking healing for the injury he took in Queen of Shadows and trying to persuade the Khagan to send armies north. He meets Yrene Towers, and the two of them proceed to take the whole fandom apart.
The vibe: political intrigue, lush world building, and one of the most genuinely tender explorations of disability and healing in the genre.
Do not skip this one. I know it looks like a detour. It is not. The Valg lore in here is essential and Kingdom of Ash does not work without it.
7. Kingdom of Ash
The story: the finale, and it is enormous. Aelin is imprisoned, her court is scattered across a continent, and the armies of Morath are moving. Every character from every previous book converges for one last stand.
The vibe: tears. Sustained, structural tears. It is brutal and beautiful and it resolves every single thread, which is not something you can say about many eight book series.
The Tandem Read: What Is It And Should You Do It?
Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn happen simultaneously, on different continents, with different casts. Read back to back, you finish Empire of Storms on its infamous cliffhanger and then have to sit through several hundred pages elsewhere before anyone addresses it. The tandem read solves this by interleaving them chapter by chapter, so the two timelines unfold together the way they actually happen. It is more work, and it is absolutely worth it if you are the kind of reader who likes to be immersed.
If you would rather not, that is completely fine. Read Empire of Storms, then Tower of Dawn, and know that the wait is deliberate.
The tandem read order looks like this:
- The Assassin’s Blade
- Throne of Glass
- Crown of Midnight
- Heir of Fire
- Queen of Shadows
- Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn, tandem, using the chapter guide below
- Kingdom of Ash
The Throne Of Glass Tandem Reading Order (by Chapters!)
- EoS: Nightfall
- EoS: Ch 1-5
- ToD: Ch 1
- EoS: Ch 6-8
- ToD: Ch 2-3
- EoS: Ch 9-10
- ToD: Ch 4-6
- EoS: Ch 11
- ToD: Ch 7
- EoS: Ch 12-13
- ToD: Ch 8-10
- EoS: Ch 14-16
- ToD: Ch 11-12
- EoS: Ch 17-18
- ToD: Ch 13-16
- EoS: Ch 19
- ToD: Ch 17
- EoS: Ch 20-23
- ToD: Ch 18-21
- EoS: Ch 24-25
- ToD: Ch 22-23
- EoS: Ch 26
- ToD: Ch 24
- EoS: Ch 27-29
- ToD: Ch 25-28
- EoS: Ch 30
- ToD: Ch 29-31
- EoS: Ch 31
- ToD: Ch 32
- EoS: Ch 32
- ToD: Ch 33-35
- EoS: Ch 33-51
- ToD: Ch 36-37
- EoS: Ch 52
- ToD: Ch 38-40
- EoS: Ch 53
- ToD: Ch 41-42
- EoS: Ch 54-56
- ToD: Ch 43
- EoS: Ch 57-59
- ToD: Ch 44-48
- EoS: Ch 60-61
- ToD: Ch 49-51
- EoS: Ch 62-63
- ToD: Ch 52-53
- EoS: Ch 64-65
- ToD: Ch 54-56
- EoS: Ch 66-67
- ToD: Ch 57
- EoS: Ch 68-75
- ToD: Ch 58 – “Fireheart”
TOG Character/Location Pronunciations
Learn how to pronounce the most popular characters and location names from the Throne Of Glass series:
- Celaena Sardothien: Sell-AY-nah Sar-DOTH-ee-en (“C” is soft like Sell).
- Chaol Westfall: KAY-all (It sounds like “Chaos” without the ‘s’. It is not pronounced “Cole”)
- Dorian Havilliard: DOR-ee-an HAV-ill-yard
- Rowan Whitethorn: ROH-wan
- Aedion Ashryver: AY-dee-on Ash-RYE-ver
- Manon Blackbeak: Mah-NON
- Lysandra: Lye-SAN-dra
- Elide Lochan: EL-ide LOCK-in
- Lorcan Salvaterre: LOR-can Sal-vah-TAIR
- Fenrys Moonbeam: FEN-ris
- Gavriel: GAV-ree-el
- Yrene Towers: Eye-REEN
- Sartaq: SAR-tack
- Nesryn Faliq: NEZ-rin FAL-ick
- Adarlan: Ah-DAR-lan
- Terrasen: TERRA-sen
- Erilea: Er-ILL-ee-ah
- Nehemia Ytger: Neh-HEE-mee-ah IT-ger
- Maeve: May-v (One syllable, rhymes with “Dave”)
- Erawan: AIR-ah-wan
- Damaris: DAM-ah-riss
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Eight in total. Seven main novels plus The Assassin’s Blade, the prequel novella collection. The series is complete, so you will not be left waiting.
Publication order is the most widely recommended, and it matches the order listed on Sarah J. Maas’s own website. That means Throne of Glass, Crown of Midnight, The Assassin’s Blade, Heir of Fire, Queen of Shadows, Empire of Storms, Tower of Dawn, Kingdom of Ash.
You can, and some readers love the extra emotional weight it gives book one. But it is a slower, sadder entry point than Throne of Glass and it is where a fair few people abandon the series. If you are new to Sarah J. Maas, I would read it third.
It is a very slow burn. Books one to three sit around 1 out of 5 on our spice scale, all tension and fade to black. From Heir of Fire onwards the characters age up and the series moves to around 3 out of 5, with open door scenes, though still noticeably less frequent than ACOTAR.
No, darlings, please do not. It looks like a side quest and it is not. The lore about the Valg revealed in Tower of Dawn is essential to understanding Kingdom of Ash, and Chaol’s arc is one of the strongest things in the series.
Not at all. It is a lovely experience for immersive readers and it fixes the pacing whiplash between the two books, but it is optional. Reading Empire of Storms then Tower of Dawn straight through works perfectly well.
Yes. All three series share a universe, with Easter eggs throughout and a significant crossover in Crescent City. Throne of Glass stands entirely on its own though, so you can read it first without missing anything.
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