A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Title: A Court of Thorns and Roses #1
Author: Sarah J. Maas 

Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's
Pre-order this book: Amazon / Book Depository

Feyre’s survival rests upon her ability to hunt and kill – the forest where she lives is a cold, bleak place in the long winter months. So when she spots a deer in the forest being pursued by a wolf, she cannot resist fighting it for the flesh. But to do so, she must kill the predator and killing something so precious comes at a price.
Dragged to a magical kingdom for the murder of a faerie, Feyre discovers that her captor, his face obscured by a jewelled mask, is hiding far more than his piercing green eyes would suggest. Feyre’s presence at the court is closely guarded, and as she begins to learn why, her feelings for him turn from hostility to passion and the faerie lands become an even more dangerous place. Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose him forever. 

Okay, it's official, Maas can do no wrong, that woman seems incapable of writing anything that isn't completely fantastic. And I'm definitely not complaining, I am in complete awe of her and she's on my auto-buy author list for life. I've spoken a lot about my love for Throne of Glass, her other fantasy series, and the fact that I haven't been this obsessed with a fictional world since Harry Potter. She created a superb fantasy world that I could get lost in, with some of the greatest characters I've seen in a long time. As soon as I heard she was released the first book in a new series, I knew I had to have it and I had to read it. And when an ARC arrived in December last year I squealed with delight and then got really nervous. It's that moment where you get a little worried that maybe it's not going to live up to your expectations. Or maybe she can't write two fantastic series. But now I know... NEVER DOUBT MAAS, EVER!

A Court of Thorns and Roses exceeded all of my expectations, which is saying a lot considering how ridiculously high they were to begin with. I was actually so happy when I finished this book that I actually hugged it, then proceeded to gush about it to my boyfriend, who just looked at me like I might actually be insane. He doesn't get my book love but he nods in all the right places and doesn't judge my hugging a book too harshly. I am not one for excessive book hugging, it's reserved for the greatest books or the ones that are the most soul destroying. This book was one of the greatest and I finished it with my soul intact! I bow down to the awesome of Maas.

This book is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast and Maas brings so much to the story. I've been wanting a great BatB retelling for so long now, especially since I was one of the few people who was really disappointed by Cruel Beauty. This was everything that I had been looking for, it delivered on everything that Cruel Beauty didn't manage to for me. This has a strong, brave heroine, a complex love interest, a brilliant fantasy world and a unique twist to the BatB story. The story starts with Feyre in the forest, hunting to provide food for her family, when she takes down a large wolf so she can take the deer it's brought down. But the wolf is a faerie, and killing it comes at a price. When a faerie of Prythian shows up at her door he gives Feyre a choice, she can either pay for the faeries life with her own or spend the rest of her life in the faerie Courts of Prythian. Feyre returns to the Spring Court where she realises there is more to the faeries, those she has feared her whole life, and their life then she would have ever imagined.

Me with the ACoTaR characters.

I'm going to start with the characters because all I really want to do is gush about my love for them. Anyone who's read the Throne of Glass series will already know that Maas can write fantastic characters. She's also capable of writing the most shippable of ships, but I honestly thought nothing could come close to Chaol and Celaena for me. I was wrong, I am always wrong. Why is Maas always proving me wrong! First we have Feyre, which is pronounced Fay-Ruh, a heroine that I came to absolutely love. She's strong and determined, she's not afraid to put herself in a dangerous situation when she needs to. But she's also a realistic character, she can't do everything and take on everything by herself. She's not a character that needs rescuing, but she's a character that comes up against situations that she can't get out of alone. Maas always writes characters that I love getting to know, they're always so well developed and never one dimensional, they grow and change over the course of a story.

Tamlin comes next, a character that I was so unsure of at first and I was scared that I wasn't going to even like him, let alone come to love him. He appears at Feyre's house, this hideous beast-like creature, demanding she either pay for breaking the treaty with her life, or she must go with him and live out the rest of her life in the faerie lands. I was nervous then, he seemed like he was going to be one of those characters I'd come across before, the really flawed love interest everyone else seemed to love but I hated. I'm thinking of Cruel Beauty's Ignifex and Grisha's Darkling, both characters I've heard people have such love for, I couldn't stand either of them. I basically spent my time hoping someone would stab them between the eyes. I was really nervous Tamlin would be like that, a character who's not just flawed, but he's cruel, evil and really just an arsehole. But, as I have stated already, I should never doubt Maas. Tamlin was everything I could have asked for in this story and so much more that I didn't even know I wanted. He's such an interesting character because he's dark and dangerous, but you always know almost instantly that there's so much to learn about him. Yet again Maas creates a character that goes straight on my list of fictional crushes.

If Dorian and Lucien ever met.

I also need to take a moment to quickly talk about Lucien, a faerie and also Tamlin's best friend. He's a brilliant secondary character and I loved the humour he brought to the story, he had me laughing out loud at times. He's also made me wish that this world will somehow meet Throne of Glass, just so Dorian and Lucien can meet. Those two could become the best of friends, they could just sit and bond together because they have so much in common. I am all for that fictional friendship, even if it's not an actual possibility.

The romance in this story is actually perfection, I ship it far too much. This is a slow build romance, which is my favourite kind, where the characters take time to actually get to know one another. Something that surprised me, in the best possible way, was how much more grown up this romance was to what I've been used to seeing in YA recently. The romance in this works so well because the characters themselves are grown up and wise beyond their years, so the romance is the same. This is a book that reads like it's actually aimed at young adults, not like it's aimed at young teens. So the romance is a lot hotter than I've seen in a YA book and I loved that about it. Seriously, be prepared to have to fan yourself on numerous occasions.

The story itself kept me gripped and I could not put this book down, it was one that you are going to want to devour in one sitting. The world and creatures that inhabit it were fascinating to me, I was eager for any new revelation about Prythian. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book doesn't end in some terrible cliffhanger. The end of this book is completely satisfying, so much so that it wouldn't have upset me if it had been a standalone. But it also leaves you with enough questions that you're eagerly awaiting another book. This book has characters and a world that I can't wait to get lost in over and over again. The wait for book two in this series is going to seem excruciatingly long.

5/5 Butterflies

This is where I need a rating higher than 5/5 butterflies because this book blew me away. I would recommend this to absoutely anyone, it's an amazing read and one you don't want to miss. If you love fantasy, fairy tale retellings, hot romance or just want a book you won't be able to put down then this is the book for you. If you're a fan of Throne of Glass then I know I won't even need to convince you to pick this book up, you already know what Maas is capable of writing. 

* I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a free and honest review