Book review: Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas

​Finished reading: 13 February 2024
Rating out of five: 4.5/5

The third book in the Throne of Glass series, Heir of Fire takes us away from Adarlan (or at least with Celaena) to Wendlyn, a land where magic still exists as it’s not impacted by the King’s ‘off’ switch. Celaena is broken after a terrible loss and heartbreak, and doesn’t really know what to do next, until she meets Rowan Whitethorn, which leads her to be truly tested to find an inner strength not just for herself, but for the survival of the world she lives in and those she loves.

As you can expect, this review will have some spoilers from the previous instalments of this series. For those who have yet to get to this point of the series—you’ve been warned!

Now that you’ve been warned, here’s the plot twist at the end of Crown of Midnight: Celaena Sardothien is the legendary lost princess Aelin Galathynius, the heir of Terrasen. That’s what we’re left with as we find Celaena in Wendlyn, who has been drinking, fighting and all other things since she’s arrived.

She’s also been keeping her ear to the ground and watching things, as good assassins do.

As you’ll remember in Crown of Midnight (assuming you’ve read it, of course), Celaena (aka. Aelin, but still referred to as Celaena) lost her close friend Nehemia Ytger, who we’re introduced to in Throne of Glass. This resulted in Celaena losing her marbles and nearly killing Chaol Westfall because he knew Nehemia’s life was in danger but didn’t do anything to prevent her dying (noting he was also captured, so the timing didn’t quite work in his favour).

This also results in Dorian Havilliard—the prince and King of Adarlan’s son—showing his magical powers by freezing Celaena in place. As you can imagine, this is a bit of an issue as he is the King’s son, but luckily (or maybe unluckily, knowing what happens later in Heir of Fire) he becomes interested in Sorscha, who we’ll go into more detail about later.

Back to present day and Celaena meets Rowan Whitethorn, a good-looking, ‘muscles that are always rippling’ fae with pine-green eyes, tan skin and silver hair. He’s old—we’re talking like 300+ year’s old—and has powers that draw from the wind. He’s also part of Celaena’s aunt’s ‘cadre’ and is known as one of the most, if not the most, powerful fae warriors.

It’s important to note his connection with Celaena’s aunt as she is Queen Maeve, and she is who Celaena needs to talk to so she can learn more about the Wyrdkeys. However, before she can get that information, Queen Maeve has specifically asked to see Celaena’s powers—a show of the powerful fire that left Celaena when the King banned magic in Erilea and hit that ‘off’ switch.
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The problem here is that Celaena hasn’t used that power like… at all. In fact, she hasn’t touched her fae side at all (with the exception of the Portal she went into in the last book, where Chaol saw her true form) and is quite fearful of it. That’s where Rowan gets involved. He is tasked to teach Celaena so she can remaster her skills, which turns out to be incredibly difficult and tough. But also sweaty…and sexy… as you can expect with powerful, muscly fae.

But let’s just pause on the activities in Wendlyn so I don’t get too spoilery. Instead, let’s head back to Adarlan—to Chaol and Dorian—and see what sheninigans are happening there. This is where the omniscient narrator truly shines. 

This story introduces a few new characters that end up playing some pretty big roles in this journey. This includes Aedion Ashryver, who arrives back from battle; Sorscha, the royal nurse who catches Dorian’s eye; and Murtaugh and Ren Allsbrook, who make up part of the rebellion who are searching for Aelin Galathynius.

A quick few things about two of these characters:

• Aedion has quite the reputation as a General of the King, but Chaol learns he hides a secret: he’s loyal to Terrasen (Aelin’s home). It’s through this that Chaol and Aedion fall into an alliance of sorts.
• Sorscha helps Dorian with controlling his magic—she’s a healer and discovers that Dorian can control his magic by consuming more iron. As mentioned before, as the son of the King who has banned magic, it’s certainly not good news for Dorian that he’s got this power within him that’s slowly oozing its way out. This also results in a very cute romance, and that’s all I’ll say about that (but I suggest getting the tissues ready).
  

But it doesn’t stop there. Outside of Rifthold, we’re introduced to three witch clans who make up the Ironteeth Witches: the Yellowlegs, Bluebloods and Blackbeaks. Our attention is drawn to Manon Blackbeak, who gets her turn in the sun as the new character in the omniscient narrator perspective.

Wondering why they’re called Ironteeth Witches? They have a retractable set of iron teeth and nails—pretty sick in my opinion.

The witch clans are rivals with each other but have come together under the banner of the King of Adarlan. With this in mind, you can probably guess they aren’t a group of ‘good’ witches. They’re on the bad side, and we get an insight into the cruel and calculating parts of these clans and the machinations of the dark side of the war.

This book is larger than the previous three, and you can probably tell by how much I’ve written that it covers A LOT. Ultimately, there’s love, more heartbreak and devastating loss, an insight behind enemy lines, an exploration into magic and powers, and deep, deep lore that had me hooked right from the get-go.

With that in mind, what did I like? A whole lot more than I did in Crown of Midnight. Removing Celaena from Adarlan and seeing magic being wielded in Wendlyn is incredible. It removes the loophole of the magic seeping into Adarlan, and we get to see some really cool things because of it.

As I’ve mentioned before, I love an omniscient narrator, and this story really shows why. We still get to head over the Rifthold in Adarlan and see what Chaol and Dorian are getting themselves up to, and we get to be introduced to key characters and get new perspectives as part of the omniscience.

I absolutely adore the introduction of the Ironteeth Witch Clans. The brutality, cruelty, and insights from behind enemy lines is very well done, and provides a whole new element to the storyline. 

The branching off of storylines with each of the main characters I think is another reason why I love this book and rated it as highly as I did. We begin to learn a lot about each character’s motivations and the direction they’re going in, which foreshadows quite a bit for the future books.

And then, beautifully done, we see that these stories will come together and join up once again by the end as we head into the next book.

But also, that ending… *chef’s kiss*. I was gripping onto my book so hard and nothing was going to stop me from finishing it once all the pieces were coming together while also falling apart.

But, what didn’t I like? Celaena’s personality and choices irritate me from time to time. And, as I mentioned in my Crown of Midnight review: nothing frustrates me more than when characters are unhappy and have conflict with one another all because they don’t say things they need to say or reference things that they know which would make everyone happier.

Open communication is so important to me, and I understand this helps in increasing tension and supports in emphasising characters flaws etc etc, but when it always happens and I find myself wanting to throw a book across the room because someone could’ve just said something to make themselves or their feelings understood, well, it brings the story down for me.

But that’s enough from me! A long review but worth it for an incredibly engaging, fun and interesting book with many twists and turns, which sets up perfectly for the next instalment: Queen of Shadows.

What are your thoughts on this book? Were you as locked in as me? Did you enjoy the introduction of the Ironteeth Witch Clans as much as I did? Let me know in the comments!