What are you reading this week? 

A Court Of Splintered Harmony by Sarah J. Maas

Like most everyone you know who is even a casual reader in the romantasy space, my week was devoted to the new installment in Sarah J. Maas’s A Court Of Thorns And Roses series. (Well, reading it and then immediately devouring all the copious internet theories about where this story goes next. Which sort of counts, I suppose.)

Titled A Court Of Splintered Harmony, this release differs quite a bit from the other books in the ACOTAR universe from both a structural and a character perspective. While obviously part of a larger whole, the earlier novels are all also self-contained stories where specific quests are completed, or enemies vanquished. They also have a primary character focus: the first four books focus on Feyre Acheron, now High Lady of the Night Court, while the fifth follows her sister Nesta. Splintered Harmony has seven different POV characters and reads much more as an extended prologue than a book that stands on its own. 

And to be fair, it doesn’t—and Maas herself admits this upfront. She’s said repeatedly that she considers Splintered Harmony “Movement I” in a larger cycle that’s spread over her next several books. But it does make the experience of reading this particular book very different from those that have come before. Clocking in at around 350 pages, It’s a fairly short read for anything set in the Maas-verse, but its story is almost entirely set-up, and very little actually happens in these pages. There’s a lot of political wrangling as Feyre and Rhys attempt to unite the other courts of Prythian against the other kingdoms seeking to invade the human lands and potentially start a new war. There’s also a lot of talking about the threat posed by Koschei the Deathless, should the final of the three death gods escape his lake-bound prison. (He’s the sibling of the Bone Carver and Stryga, The Weaver Of The Wood, for those who haven’t read an ACOTAR wiki refresher recently.) 

Still, some of the character beats are worthwhile; Splintered Harmony cleans up some of the lingering issues leftover from Nesta’s involvement in the crossover events of House Of Flame And Shadow, the third installment of Maas’s Crescent City series. The forbidden flirtation between Illyrian warrior Azriel and Feyre’s sister Elain heats up. Feyre and her husband Rhysand are exceptionally gooey new parents. Mor…appears occasionally! And Vassa remains my favorite random third-tier supporting character this series has introduced. But despite its enjoyable moments, this is a book that leaves you with many more questions than you started with, and little sense of what to expect from its sequel. (Er…second and third “movements”, apparently.) 

Thankfully, we won’t have to wait all that long for answers; the next installment, A Court Of Forgotten Melody, arrives in January, which, when compared to the five-year wait between Splintered Harmony and its predecessor, A Court Of Silver Flames, is basically nothing. But one has to wonder whether it might have been better to release both these two titles together, either as a single combined (admittedly, terrifyingly massive) volume or two separate installments at once. Having the book end just as it feels as though the larger plot is finally starting is frustrating, to say the least. Still, since the book sold 1.7 million copies on release day, we’re clearly not all complaining that much. (What? It’s not like I’m not going to be right back in Prythian in January.