Book Review: A Court of Frost and Starlight

Title: A Court of Frost and Starlight
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Fiction

What It’s About: Feyre wakes up and looks around Rhysand’s and her sroom–Rhys is long gone to the Illyrian War camps with Cassian. She decides that she needs to look at the letters on the desk, and find a place for the things cluttering up their bed room, but she decides to leave it alone for Solstice, especially as all the charities that she had been volunteering at had told her to take a break. So she waders around the city of Velaris, and looks at the Artist’s quarters–Rainbow Row. There, she sees a house/ studio and the woman that she fought alongside during the attack on the city tells her that one family made it out, but Polina, the owner, did not. The woman tells Feyre that she hears that the family is looking to sell the building, and then introduces herself as Ressina. She tells Feyre that she runs a weekly meet-up of Artists, and Feyre is welcome to join. Mor finds Feyre in the town and together they shop in a jewelry store for Amren, with Feyre finding a piece that she likes for her friend. Mor also tells her that they will have to go to Hewn City.

Rhysand is with Cassian at Lord Devon’s camp, as a way to show solidarity with Cassian, who is taking out his frustration on Lord Devlon for not permitting females to train, though Devlin’s excuse has been that they are busy helping prepare for Winter Solstice. They agree to 90 minutes of training for the girls, and then everyone helps out with the preparations. After that has been done, Rhys and Cassian go into their semi-permanent tent and discuss the growing discontent amongst the Illyrians–someone, somewhere is sowing seeds of discord after the war. Rhys leaves and Cassian flies off, giving quite homage and prayers to the tallest peak–Ramiel–which is where the Illyrians hold the Rite, and then he turns and goes to another peak, where he finds the cinders of a village–one that he had destroyed years ago as it had been his home village where he was born and his mother lived there even after he was forced to go to the Illyrian War Camps that put him in the path of becoming friends with Rhys. Cassian knows that he destroyed this village because no one treated his mother right, and refused to tell him where she was buried. He now finds it important that women, too, get trained as his mother never had. He returns to the camp knowing that he will have to return to Velaris for the Winter Solstice in 2 days time, per Rhysand’s wish and request. Cassian visits a store carrying goods–the store was previously owned by Proteus, and now it is run and owned by his daughter, Emerie. He buys clothes–warm ones for the winter and tells Emerie to give it out to those most in need as a storm is coming, and it will be a very rough winter storm.

Rhysand and Feyre go to Hewn City with Morrison, who keeps thinking to herself and zones out while they are talking, remembering what her father–Keir–did to her and how Eris left her on the border, not offering to help her. Once they’re done with Hewn City, they head back home.

Rhysand talks to Azriel, who got intel on the dissenters in the Illyrian War Camps and towns, and he makes the decision to keep it from Cassian until after the Solstice. He also talks to Mor and tells her that Keri will probably ask to visit after spring starts, and offers her the role of emissary in order to travel across the world and make friendships that would help the Night Court gain alliances in this new peace. Rhysand visits his preferred jeweler and does not buy any jewelry for Feyre, as beautiful as it might be, because it’s not what Feyre would want. He makes a visit to Tamlin’s estate to talk to Tamlin about enforcing his borders, but Tamlin is broken, miserable and despondent. As a result, Rhysand tells him that he did this to himself and deserves what he has, before winnowing out of the mansion, realizing that Tamlin is so destroyed that he is not even able to keep up his wards around the mansion protecting him.

Feyre grabs her painting things and goes to Ressina’s studio to join the group, but is not ready at all to paint in front of an audience, so she goes into Polina’s studio, and spends several hours painting herself in the Ouroboros Mirror. She comes in another time, paints some more, and when she finishes, Ressina comes in saying that she figured that it may have been Feyre the other night. Ressina cleans up the space, saying that Polina would have liked it. Rhysand catches Feyre afterwards and they spend time together.

Feyre also finds out from Elain that Nesta is not coming to a dinner that they are having–she’s moved into a shady part of town and barely comes to visit except for once a month. Lucien visits and drops off gifts for Feyre and Elain, and tells Feyre that he has been staying with Jurian and Vassa. The three of them call themselves the Court of Exiles. Once he leaves, not being able to stand being in Elain’s presence without her attention or desire to act upon their bond, Feyre asks Elain if she cannot be kinder to Lucien. Feyre then goes and visits Amren, who is solving a puzzle while Varian is out shopping for more gifts for Amren, who tells her to leave Nesta alone–let her sort things out on her own, and she will come when she is read. Amren does tell her that she will try to talk Nesta into coming to the Winter Solstice dinner at their house. Feyre goes out with Elain the next day for some more shopping and they come across a Weaver working on her loom. Feyre loves this one piece made by the weaver containing a dark material that she later finds out is called the Void–the blackest of black–and a shimmering material that the weaver calls hope. Not only is it a tapestry portraying the insignia of the Night Court–Ramiel surrounded by 3 stars–but also a sign of hope. The weaver explains that she lost her mate to the war; that she doesn’t have a piece of him as they never had a child because they thought they had all the time in the world. The woman tells Feyre that she’s been so broken up over the fact that it is hard without him, and that she misses him. So Feyre asks her why does she create, and the woman tells her that it is to keep her going–to create to tell her story–because otherwise she would fall apart. Feyre realizes that she is lucky–that she lost Rhys but that she didn’t really , and that they shouldn’t wait, but rather they should do the things they want now. She knows what her gift is going to be to Rhys, but she also buys the tapestry.

Feyre finds Nesta one evening in a tavern and tells her to come to the Solstice. Nesta says no, and then reminds Feyre that her rent is due. Feyre tells her to come to Winter Solstice with them and she will give her the check for the rent.

The day of the Winter Solstice, Feyre wakes up to Rhysand gifting her presents for her birthday as Winter Solstice is Feyre’s birthday. Many of them are painting-related to enable her to paint more. When Feyre and Rhysand come to breakfast, Rhysand is kidnapped by Cassian and Azriel. Mor shows Feyre later that they are at the cabin having a snowball fight. Azriel wins for the 199th time. That night, Feyre, Rhys, Elain, Amren, Varin, Mor, Cassian and Azriel gather. First, they bring out a cake Elain made but that was decorated by Cuala and Nerridwen. At the bottom, it is the night sky, then fire, then flowers–in order of the way that Feyre painted the dresser all those years ago for her sisters and her. Elain tells her that she has ben their foundation–holding up her sisters and supporting them, which makes Feyre cry. Suddenly, there is a knock at the door, and it is Nesta. Amren tells her to go eat, and at first everyone thinks Nesta will bring out her claws, but she just laughs it off.

They all spend Solstice together and when Nesta decides to leave, she is stopped by Feyre, who hands her a check for the rent. Cassian comes out, pushes Feyre out of the way and then follows Nesta. he tells her that he will walk her home, and has a present for her. Nesta rejects both things, and tells him to leave her alone. In anger, he chucks the gift into the Sidra, and pauses. Cassian has been fascinated by Nesta from the first time he met her that night in her father’s home months ago.

Nesta makes it to her apartment, Cassian having followed her flying, though he has been hidden from view. She slides down the door and sits on the floor, looking at the check that Feyre had given her–three month’s rent. Nesta feels guilty and ashamed–it has been months now that she hasn’t felt anything.

Feyre and Rhysand he’d upstairs, but he winnows them to the cabin, and reveals that Feyre’s favorite dresses had been made by his mother, who was a seamstress. His mom made them for his future wife or mate. Feyre tells him that she has one more gift for him and shows him the images of the boy, their son, and tells him that she is sure. They have sex in the cabin and make the pictures fall down, just like she had wanted.

The next day, Rhysand takes her to a pier of land and tells her that this is his solstice gift to her–land to build a house big enough for them and their friends, and the family they want to have, because the townhouse is getting too tight for them all. he tells her to build it with a painting studio, a nursery and whatever else she wants.

Rhys, Azriel and Cassian go back to the War Camps, and the two tell Cassian the news on who is instigating and fueling the discontent in the Illyrian faction–a son of one of the lords who died in the war. Azriel and Rhys suggest that he may have an accident during the Rite, but Cassian tells them that they will not be messing with the Rite.

Feyre finds herself holding the keys to Polina’s townhouse–the family had gifted it to her, and told her to donate the money that she would have used to purchase the house instead to a charity supporting Artists. Feyre enters a partnership with Ressina, and they start painting therapy–to help children work through their emotions after the war and heal. A month later, they have generated a lot of interests and many artists have volunteered to teach, even Aranea–the weaver.

After Solstice, RHysand visits Tamlin–Lucien’s words playing in his mind, the ones that Lucien had said to Feyre and she relayed to Rhys. He finds Tamlin in his own kitchen, a deer that he had hunted bleeding out on the table. Rhys tells Tamlin that the Summer Court is sending guards to help enforce the rules with the land now that the wall is gone. Tamlin mutters something about forgiveness and then says that he doesn’t think an apology matters to Rhys. Rhys carves the skin off the deer, and some meet, then puts it on the stove magically and tells Tamlin to eat–they can figure everything out later.

My Thoughts: I just love how in love Feyre and Rhys are and how Feyre realizes that she has a lot to live for; how lucky she is, and I love that she makes the decision to try to have a child now rather than wait after she hears Aranea’s story. The name of the weaver made me actually chuckle because it is very close to Arachne, the name of the mortal weaver who pissed off the Goddess Athena, who in turn changed her into a spider. Aranea also sounds very similar to the word in Spanish for spider, so I wonder if that is where it came from. Either way, this is a very short but wholesome book, looking at the characters and in some way setting up for the next book, I think. I like that we get to see some different perspectives, including Rhys’s–which we only had happen once before. I would love to see more from his perspective, and also from Nesta, Cassian, Azriel, and Elain’s perspectives. I’m still convinced that Nesta and Cassian have something going on, and Elain is just trying to lean into Azriel because she is terrified of the mate bond with Lucien; maybe she would have given him a chance if he hadn’t just blurted out that she’s his mate when she came out of the Cauldron.