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The world renowned thief and assassin, Celaena Sardothien, is offered a job by the crowned prince Dorian Havilliard to participate in a competition for her freedom which, if she wins, she will have serve the king for five years as his personal killer and, if she loses, she will be sent back to the mines. She will not be able to survive one more year in the salt mine so she has to win. When she agrees to the competition, she does not realize just how many challenges and set backs she will face nor how attached she will get to those there.
This story combines romance, action, and fantasy together. She falls for not one but two men in the palace while she is busy fighting and figuring out other mysterious things going on behind the scenes. The book is packed with small details and key hints to what is to come later on. The relationships that she makes in this book build and form her character later on. Everything builds and every relationship is key. I really enjoy this book and the ones to come in this series. This author does a great job with their world building and character integration. I love finding all the little hints that the author leaves and watching as the character grows.
The majority of this books is quite slow and does not carry over into the rest of the series. The author is mostly prioritizes world building and establishing characters over actual plot. While I did enjoy reading this book, much of the plot is predicable and went nowhere. As the series progresses, there is more interest and a better build up to the last book. It is by no means a bad book, but the series has room to grow.
The next book in this series is: Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas. Other books similar to this are Ash Princess trilogy by Laura Sebastian because of the similar way that royalty treats the main characters, Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi because both main characters were destroyed by those around them, and Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard because both books have similarly strong main characters.