Throne of Glass
1) Throne of Glass
2) Crown of Midnight
.5) The Assassin’s Blade
3) Heir of Fire
4) Queen of Shadow
5) Empire of Storms
5.5) Tower of Dawn
6) Kingdom of Ash
A Court of Thornes and Roses
1) A Court of Thornes and Roses (ACOTAR)
2) A Court of Mist and Fury (ACOMAF)
3) A Court of Wings and Ruin (ACOWAR)
3.5) A Court of Frost and Starlight (ACOFAS)
4) A Court of Silver Flames (ACOSF)
5) Untitled
6) Untitled
Crescent City
1) House of Earth and Blood
2) Untitled
3) Untitled
I’ll be explaining the books that you could technically skip or parts where it gets a bit confusing. If you want to only follow the list I have above, you’ll get the full experience of the books!
Throne of Glass
The first two books, Throne of Glass and Crown of Midnight, should be read one after the other. The Assassin’s Blade is a compilation of five different novellas/short stories that happen before the events of Throne of Glass. They need to be read before Heir of Fire, because they provide much needed context for the story. You could, in theory, read The Assassin’s Blade before Throne of Glass, but I think it’s better to have the story introduced by Throne of Glass as the book does a great job at world building and introducing characters.
Heir of Fire, Queen of Shadows, and Empire of Storms are all pretty straight forward (except not exactly but we’ll get into that with ACOTAR).
Next you should read Tower of Dawn. Goodreads says this book is number 6 in the series, but I see it more as number 5.5. It was supposed to be a novella but became a full-length novel when Sarah J Maas wrote the entire story in 3 days (if I remember correctly, she did an interview where she explained this). It takes place during Empire of Storms and follows Choal in a story that feels like Throne of Glass part 2. You technically don’t need to read it before Kingdom of Ash, but you will be confused and have some key points of tension spoiled if you skip it.
A Court of Thornes and Roses
(I wanted to preface this section by saying that these titles are super long, so everyone calls them by their acronyms)
In the actual series, these books are very straight forward. It goes A Court of Thornes and Roses (ACOTAR), A Court of Mist and Fury (ACOMAF), A Court of Wings and Ruin (ACOWAR), A Court of Frost and Starlight (ACOFAS), A Court of Silver Flames (ACOSF), and then the two books that don’t have a title yet. ACOFAS is a Novella that is supposed to bridge the gap between the first trilogy and the second trilogy, so it needs to be read after ACOWAR and before ACOSF.
Where it gets tricky is reading it in the context of Throne of Glass. While These two books are completely different stories and set in different worlds, there is a scene that can be considered a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spoiler for the ACOTAR series. If you don’t mind that, feel free to read it after the Throne of Glass series. If you do mind here is the kind of complicated list:
Throne of Glass…………………………………………..A Court of Thornes and Roses
1) Throne of Glass
2) Crown of Midnight
.5) The Assassin’s Blade
3) Heir of Fire
1) A Court of Thornes and Roses
4) Queen of Shadow
2) A Court of Mist and Fury
5) Empire of Storms
3) A Court of Wings and Ruin
5.5) Tower of Dawn
3.5) A Court of Frost and Starlight
6) Kingdom of Ash
4) A Court of Silver Flames
5) Untitled
6) Untitled
This is the order I read the books in, which is the order they came out (lucky you, you don’t need to wait 7 years to read the whole series! Yes, it hurts to think about sometimes). This of course isn’t the order in which you need to read it. If the Throne of Glass Series is getting intense, you might not want to start reading ACOTAR because you want to know how Throne of Glass ends. I get that. This is just in case you want to read it in the original order they came out.
Crescent City
There isn’t much to say about the order of the Crescent City series as only one of the books is released. House of Earth and Blood recently came out and the other two books that have been announced have not yet been titled. If you are starting to read them now, perfect! You get to experience the series as it unfolds, nothing is more fun than that!
Book Barn 