A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas – Review

Published: February 16, 2021

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses #4

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Pages: 757 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 3.0/5.0

Synopsis:

Nesta Archeron has always been prickly-proud, swift to anger, and slow to forgive. And ever since being forced into the Cauldron and becoming High Fae against her will, she’s struggled to find a place for herself within the strange, deadly world she inhabits. Worse, she can’t seem to move past the horrors of the war with Hybern and all she lost in it.

The one person who ignites her temper more than any other is Cassian, the battle-scarred warrior whose position in Rhysand and Feyre’s Night Court keeps him constantly in Nesta’s orbit. But her temper isn’t the only thing Cassian ignites. The fire between them is undeniable, and only burns hotter as they are forced into close quarters with each other.

Meanwhile, the treacherous human queens who returned to the Continent during the last war have forged a dangerous new alliance, threatening the fragile peace that has settled over the realms. And the key to halting them might very well rely on Cassian and Nesta facing their haunting pasts.

Against the sweeping backdrop of a world seared by war and plagued with uncertainty, Nesta and Cassian battle monsters from within and without as they search for acceptance-and healing-in each other’s arms.

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You know, I just can’t stay away from these books even though I end up in a state of disbelief after I finish them. I just HAD to see how the continuation of the Night Court’s story would play out. In all honesty, this book had a pretty good storyline,  but the amount of sex scenes was just ridiculous. And hilarious, but maybe that’s just because I laugh at the wrong stuff.

A Court of Silver Flames is a story focusing on Nesta, Feyre’s eldest sister. She was forcibly turned into one of the fey and has been struggling with that and a great deal of other traumas ever since. Quite frankly, she needed serious therapy but her whole family decided to just sort of watch her drink her life away and see if the problem would fix itself. Spoiler: the problem didn’t fix itself. Feyre and Rhys send her up to the House of the Wind and order her to train with Cassian and help in the library. Nesta, being the strong-willed individual that she is, is fantastically stubborn about the whole thing. Eventually she comes around, starts training, and even makes a few friends.

The character growth in this book is quite impressive. Nesta isn’t the only one who has trauma to overcome – the minor characters in the book were amazing, lovable, and totally my favorite, but they also had terrible things happen to them. Slowly, they begin to speak of their pasts, overcome some things, continue to struggle with others, and overall became stronger and more resilient because of the bonds they formed with one another. This book could have honestly been a 4.5 or 5 star read if we had cut out like 50% of the hilarious sex (and so, so graphic) sex scenes. I mean, REALLY??? EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER??? Don’t get me wrong, seeing Cassian and Nesta slowly build their relationship was great, but wow. And honestly, I didn’t like Nesta for a long time, but slowly she got better. And would promptly be awful for a couple pages once again.

This definitely hasn’t been my favorite book of the series,  but I can sort of respect what SJMaas was trying to do here. There are some fantastic elements to it, but you have to wade through the romance part to get to the good stuff. I’ll totally continue on with the series, if only to find out what can go horribly wrong and who will almost die only to be magically saved at the last moment. Because of course that happened in this book.