Celaena Sardothien was a great assassin, until she was betrayed and thrown into prison. But the prince comes with an offer to her: she can compete against twenty-three other warriors to become the king's champion, and to win her freedom. But when she arrives at the castle, she finds there is a whole lot more to the gorgeous prince than it seemed, and the Captain of the Guard, Chaol, has a tough shell, but a warm heart. Celaena also discovers that there's a murder inside who is killing off the competitors one by one. And if she doesn't solve the mystery, she might be next. 
 ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- 
 I finally got to finish it, and it was just so amazing! ASDFGHJKL! I've been wanting to read this for such a long time now, but never got around to it . I'm just so happy I got to read it now. It was just soooooooooo good! 
 I really loved all the characters and their development throughout the story (though Celaena was a tiny bit irritating sometimes because she could be so rude and ignorant). And she was supposed to be some amazing and brilliant assassin, and for the most part, she was. But sometimes... she just wasn't. For example, there was a murderer in the castle who was slowly killing off the contestants for the contest. One morning, Celaena wakes up to find a bag of candy in her room, and she just thinks "Yum, I loves sweets," and digs right in! Any logical assassin, or even regular person would check to see who sent it before eating it. It could have been poisonous and killed you! But other than some dumb moves like that, she was pretty good. 
 And I have to say, I really, really, really enjoyed the love triangle! It was very well done and throughout the entire book I kept switching teams. They're both so great. But I think I've finally settled on Choal. At least for now. But I've heard that Celaena gets a new love interest with every new book, so it will probably be changing again as I read through the series. 
 Plus I absolutely loved the mystery aspect of who it was that was killing the contestants. And the idea of the wyrdmarks were kinda cool too. 
 My only complaint about this book was the names of things. I'm pretty sure I missed pronounced 75% of the names of characters and places. Luckily, there was a pronunciation guide at the back, so I think I have them right now. It was a really good idea to include that, and I wish that more authors would do this. It was SO helpful. (Take note Cassandra Clare) 
 The ending of the book was really pleasing, and I'm relatively happy with everything at this moment in time. But I need to know what happens next and make sure all my favourite characters will be okay. And I want more Choal!!! And a bit of Dorian too. Oh, I just can't wait to get my hands on the next book and continue with this fabulous series.