4.5/5 stars
Sarah J. Maas consistently writes kick-ass female characters who are deep and real and flawed and powerful. Heir of Fire is the third book in her Throne of Glass series and it did not disappoint. This book was broken up into parts, with different characters in different locations being focused on in different chapters. I know that not everyone likes that style, but I think it was not only necessary here, but beautifully done. The world of Throne of Glass is so large and there are so many developed characters that we need to keep track of and that wouldn’t have been possible if we had simply followed the protagonist on her solo journey throughout the whole novel. Also, Sarah never does that “cliff-hanger-at-the end-of-the-chapter-oh-no-now-we’re-following-another-character-guess-you’ll-have-to-wait-fifty-pages-to-find-out-what-happened” thing. Which is great. Almost every time that there is a tense moment at the end of a chapter, the next chapter is in the same spot so we aren’t left hanging.
Another thing I have to touch on is the romance in Sarah’s books, which is particularly important to this installment. **Spoilers kinda** Sarah has characters date, sleep with,and love different people throughout her series and it is shown as a normal and healthy thing. Caelena, the main character of this series, sleeps with two men in the first novel. One relationship came to an end and then she begins another. Then, in book three, we see her beginning a relationship (I may be wrong here and they could be best friends in book four), and it’s okay. It doesn’t mean that the other relationships were bad and it doesn’t mean there is something wrong with Caelena. Caelena has grown and she wants different things now and that’s shown in who she has in her life and what she values and it’s such a refreshing thing to see. So many books have one person fall in love with one person and that’s it. Or books will have side characters sleep around because that’s not something a respectable protagonist would do.
Heir of Fire was filled with adventure and Caelena is **Spoilers** is dealing with her fae heritage and there is so SO much world building that is done fantastically. This book is filled with a lot more mythology than the first two and I really enjoyed that. I would recommend this series to anyone who likes sex positivity, fantasy and well-developed women.
Endlesslyshifting 