Throne of Glass Books in Order

Throne of Glass is Sarah J. Maas’s eight-book high-fantasy series, following Celaena Sardothien — an assassin imprisoned in the salt mines of Endovier — as she is pulled back into the orbit of a kingdom that has no idea who she really is. What begins as a tournament-at-court story expands, across eight volumes, into a continent-spanning fight over fate, inheritance, and the walls between worlds.

The series is published by Bloomsbury and was marketed as young adult when it launched in 2012; the later volumes lean into noticeably more adult fantasy territory. For most readers, publication order is the cleanest path through the series — it is the order Maas wrote and released the books, and it keeps the story’s reveals in the order she intended.

Two optional reading paths are worth knowing about before you start. First, the prequel novella collection The Assassin’s Blade can be read first if you prefer strict in-world chronology — it is set roughly two years before the events of Throne of Glass. Most longtime fans recommend saving it until after Heir of Fire, when its emotional payoff hits hardest. Second, the sixth and seventh books — Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn — are set at the same time, in different locations. A popular “tandem read” alternates chapters between the two so both storylines land together in time for Kingdom of Ash.