Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass #2

     "From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul as black as pitch. Assassin Celaena Sardothien won a brutal contest to become his Champion. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown. She hides her secret vigilantly; she knows that the man she serves is bent on evil.

     Keeping up the deadly charade becomes increasingly difficult when Celaena realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. As she tries to untangle the mysteries buried deep within the glass castle, her closest relationships suffer. It seems no one is above questioning her allegiances—not the Crown Prince Dorian; not Chaol, the Captain of the Guard; not even her best friend, Nehemia, a foreign princess with a rebel heart.

     Then one terrible night, the secrets they have all been keeping lead to an unspeakable tragedy. As Celaena's world shatters, she will be forced to give up the very thing most precious to her and decide once and for all where her true loyalties lie...and whom she is ultimately willing to fight for."

Wonderful. Amazing. Marvelous. Stunning. There are no words and not enough words for me to describe how much I love this book. I mean wow, great ending/cliffhanger. And the rest of the book is also great.

Celaena has some pretty intense character development in this book. She starts off in full swing of doing her duty as King's Champion, chopping heads and such. Slowly falling for Chaol, and keeping a respectful distance from the Prince, much to his displeasure. Though she desperately wants to be free, Celaena is far from loyal to the crown as she has been faking each and every assassin the king dispatches her to do. Celaena goes through more hardships and deals with more dangers in this book than she did in the second. And when she loses someone close to her it takes more than she knew she had in her to pull herself back together, though it does lead her to learn something starttling about the Crowned Prince. Her relationship with Chaol is in a way kind of bittersweet. And on boy, that cliffhanger. It has me wishing I had all the books right now so that I didn't have to wait to know what happens.

Both Chaol and Dorian have intense feelings for Celaena, though I was a little unbelieving of Chaol's feelings in a way. Considering that he treated her with disdain for 90% of the first book, and guarded acceptance through the other 10 and most of this book as well. But when we take into account what we learn about Celaena at the end of this book it makes more sense as to why she pushed Dorian away at the end of Throne of Glass. Celaena learns more about the mysterious Wyrd marks and what it would mean if the King had control over that kind of power, she also uncovers many secrets about the castle and what lurks in the obsidian clock tower.

So much happens in this book and so much that I don't want to spoil. There is so much to say and I dont want to give away the climax of the story, and it's phenomenal ending that has me itching for the third book already. Seriously people, this series is amazing... read it.