There are skills and allies she made while she was an assassin and she finds that it is necessary to masquerade as Celaena for a few moments longer. She’s been Celaena for half her life to survive, so getting rid of that persona completely is likely impossible. Yes, she came into her power and name, but there are moments in Queen of Shadows where Aelin can’t quite shake her identity as Celaena. In the last book, Celaena’s character growth was something that I truly enjoyed reading and that growth is not quite done.

And unfortunately, a lot of that was planning and plotting. In Queen of Shadows, not only does Aelin have to address her past, but she also has to address the future of her kingdom as well as the continuation of the one she’s known for half her life. For me, Celaena’s journey back to Adarlan and the duties she had to address there were a little boring after the excitement of her training and coming into her identity as Aelin, as well as the excitement and horror at the capture of Aedion, Dorian, and Chaol. Perhaps it was because she was back in Adarlan where I was already familiar with the villain, but I felt that this book dealt with a lot of the logistics of setting up the next book in the series and dealing with the aftermath of what happened in Heir of Fire instead of really doing anything new. As always, slight spoilers for the previous novels.Ĭoming fresh from reading Heir of Fire, Queen of Shadows lacked a little bit of the punch that the other did.

Queen of shadows