Welcome to the ultimate Throne of Glass reading guide! Whether you saw Throne of Glass on BookTok and found yourself here, picked up the first book on the series on a whim in Barnes and Noble or you’re a seasoned Sarah J. Mass reader, congratulations on making the best decision of your year. You’re going to love it here!
Throne of Glass is the author Sarah J. Mass’s first work. It is also her only complete series.
This eight book saga is my favorite book series of all time, following Celaena Sardothian who found herself enslaved in the mines of Endovier after serving as the most notorious assassin of the kingdom for years. The story begins with a handsome prince and his royal guard offering Celaena a chance to earn her freedom in a tournament, only to evolve into the most epic high fantasy adventure of a lifetime.
GOBLIN WARNING: If you’re just getting started on your Sarah J. Mass adventure, I strongly recommend reading ACOTAR first. Read more about my guide to getting started to Maasverse.
You might have found yourself here because you’ve stumbled upon some heavy debate on how to read the Throne of Glass series. There are a few ways to read the series and none of them are the wrong way. However, as a self proclaimed Throne of Glass goblin, I strongly believe there is an ultimate way to read the series for the most cohesive story and maximum emotional impact. So if you’re looking to be consumed emotionally by a book and get permanently “traumatized” by a series (but I promise in a good way, like not being able to go a day without thinking about these books kinda way) read along!
Throne of Series Reading Order
TDLR; This is the order you should read Throne of Glass
- Throne of Glass
- Crown of Midnight
- The Assassin’s Blade
- Heir of Fire
- Queen of Shadows
- Empire Of Storms/Tower of Dawn tandem read
- Kingdom of Ash
Why this is the best throne of glass reading order, explained
You’re probably going to ask, “how come there can be so many different ways to read a series isn’t it linear. And the answer to that is in two questions.
- When to read “The Assassin’s” Blade?
- How to read Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn?
When to Read the Assassin’s Blade?
The Assassin’s Blade is a collection of short stories Sarah J. Mass published over the years about the adventures of Celaena Sardothian across Erilea. All of these adventures take place before Throne of Glass.
It’s not unexpected for your reaction now to be “but wait why would I not read an obvious prequel series before I start Throne of Glass?” The answer is the ✨emotional impact ✨I mentioned earlier.
My official recommendation (and Sarah J. Maas’s for that matter – no seriously we argued about this so much she had to publish her official position on this) is to read The Assassin’s blade as the third book of the series. There are a few reasons why you should do this.
First and foremost is to preserve the air of the mystery in the series. You spend the first two Throne of Glass books, Throne of Glass and Crown of Midnight respectively, getting to know the original main three characters Celaena, Dorian and Chaol. You’ll also meet the antagonist of the series, and the magic system of the world, so you should get to know these characters first, then read The Assassin’s Blade to understand why they are the way they are.
Second is that The Assassin’s Blade has a lot of side characters you haven’t met before, like a lot. There are multiple short stories in this prequel work, and each of them consist of a different set of characters Celaena interacts with. If you don’t have a strong footing in the world of Erilea, you’ll brush over these characters, and you really don’t want that. Why? Because SJM is a mastermind, and every single character mentioned in The Assassin’s Blade will come to play a role across the series.
Third, Throne of Glass massively changes its tone between the second book Crown of Midnight and third book Heir of Fire. The Assassin’s Blade serves as a good injunction point to wrap up the ending of the second book and enter the second phase of the series with a fresh perspective and reinforced backstory of characters you’ll see the rest of the series.
Also, another thing that always comes up is that as a fandom we have to regularly answer, no, you should not skip the Assassin’s Blade. As I mentioned, these characters form the foundation for multiple long plot points later on, so even though you might not see them very often, they are critical to plot lines.
So, to summarize, read the Assassin’s Blade as the third book.
How to read Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn Tandem
If you peruse the internet you might see some people read Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn concurrently, or what we call the tandem. Tandem means reading both books at the same time, and switching between them at certain parts of the plot.
My personal advice is to always, forever, definitely, most certainly, tandem these books.
Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn cover the same time period in Erilea following the completely different set of characters. You’ll know some of these characters ahead of time, and others will be introduced in new plot lines throughout the books. By the time you reach book six and seven, we meet about thirty characters in the entire series, so their stories are split up between two books.
Technically speaking, Empire of Storms is published before Tower of Dawn and you could read it in that order, but speaking from experience I’ve had many friends who were overwhelmed by the tandem that they read Empire of Storms first.
The catch is, the Empire of Storm’s ending is such a realm-altering experience in the series that it is near impossible to reset back to the beginning of the timeline of the events Empire of Storms has covered and follow a much more mellow story line in Tower of Dawn. And you can’t read Tower of Dawn first because the ending gives away what happened in Empire of Storms so you’ll spoil a big plot line for yourself.
After arguing for years about which book to read first, the community has finally found a middle ground between these books, making it a one giant mega book. This post includes a guide to tandeming Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn, it’s a community tested and proven chapter reading order.
As for managing two books at once, this is the easiest on a Kindle edition, especially if you have the books individually (some people have an 8 book mega book version that’s sold on Amazon.) Physical books are a bit logistically cumbersome to manage, but more than doable. It’s the hardest on audio medium with it being kind of hard to refer to the tandem guide while reading on the move, as most audiobook readers do.
I personally manage audio tandem, what I did is to add the tandem guide as a large widget in my home screen so I can peek at which chapter I’m supposed to switch to the next book. Another way you can do something similar is to set bookmarks in the audiobook chapters ahead of time referring to the guide at the beginning of each chapter and switch in between books when you hit a bookmark.
GOBLIN WARNING: If you absolutely cannot make tandem work, then I recommend reading Tower of Dawn first WITHOUT THE EPILOGUE, then reading Empire of Storms, then reading the Tower of Dawn epilogue. That way you queue Kingdom of Ash, the conclusion to the series right after Empire of Storms, but don’t spoil anything for yourself.
Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn Tandem Guide
There you have it! Feel free to save and share the graphics below, and I’ll see you soon for more all things bookish!
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