Throne of Glass Books in Order

Throne of Glass is Sarah J. Maas' first series — eighteen-year-old Celaena Sardothien, Adarlan's most feared assassin, hauled out of a death camp to compete in a tournament for the crown prince, in a kingdom whose magic has been extinguished and whose king is lying about why. Published 2012 to 2018, it is the rare YA epic that was planned to its ending from book one: the eight novels escalate from tournament thriller to continental war, and the finale, Kingdom of Ash, pays off threads laid in chapter one of book one (2012–2018).

Where to start

Throne of Glass (2012), the actual first novel. The famous alternative is to open with The Assassin's Blade, the bind-up of five prequel novellas about Celaena's life before the death camp — it works as a door and many fans swear by it, but it is a softer, sadder book that was written for readers who already love her; the tournament opener remains the series' best on-ramp. Readers under fifteen or sensitive to slow starts are warned honestly: books one and two are the youngest; Heir of Fire, the third, is where the series becomes what it is.

Does the reading order matter?

Publication order, with the series' two eternal debates. Debate one: The Assassin's Blade sits first chronologically (Celaena before the camps) or fifth by publication (after Queen of Shadows) — read it first if you want her backstory as setup, fifth if you want it as the gut-punch it was designed to be. Debate two: Tower of Dawn, book six, runs parallel to Empire of Storms following a different character — read it between Empire of Storms and Kingdom of Ash, never skip it (its events are load-bearing for the finale). Everything else is strict order; the last page of Kingdom of Ash assumes you have read every word.

Which one is the best?

Queen of Shadows is the series' favorite middle act — the payoff of three books of setup. Kingdom of Ash is the accepted peak as a finale: enormous, brutal, and structurally audacious. Heir of Fire is the connoisseur's pick, the book where Maas stops writing YA thrillers and starts writing epic fantasy, and Empire of Storms the most romantic. The prequel novellas, taken together, are quietly the most devastating thing in the series.

Related guides

Readers finishing this shelf usually want the map next door: Sarah J. Maas books in order, ACOTAR books in order, Fourth Wing books in order. Every guide follows the same format — the shelf, the entry point, the honest answer about order.

Make it a project

Pick a session size and let the days accumulate — at the pace our reading speed test measures, most shelves above clear in a few weeks of half-hours. Every guide on the books in order shelf follows this same format, and when a book lands, its 8-question quiz is waiting on the original book quiz.