Happy A Court of Splintered Harmony Day to all who celebrate! The sixth book in Sarah J. Maas’s ACOTAR series has hit our bookshelves today, five years after the most recent novel was published.
The new novel will see the Night Court attempt to bring together the various factions of Prythian, which are still hurting after the war. They must gather their strength and build alliances if the kingdom is going to survive Koschei the Deathless. Though the death god has been confined to a lake for millennia, his power is growing and it’s attracting those who wish to gain what they believe was once theirs—the human lands. ACOSH is the first in three new novels, which are part of a new arc called The Valkyrie Cycle, and ACOSH will cover Movement I in this cycle.
Readers have had a long time to wait for the new novel to be released, and in that time, you may have noticed many fans of the novels have spent a lot of time theorizing about what could happen in the new books. And one of the main theories is that the new books will be crucially linked to another book series by Sarah J. Maas—Crescent City—and will feature a crossover.
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But do you actually need to read Crescent City before ACOSH? And why do people believe they're linked? Here's what to know.
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Do you need to read Crescent City before ACOSH?
In short, no, you don't need to read the Crescent City series before A Court of Splintered Harmony.
However, according to many readers online, reading Crescent City would enhance your reading experience of ACOSH as there are believed to be many connections within the novels.
Think of it similarly as if you've only seen Tom Holland as Spider-Man and then watched Spider-Man: No Way Home where all three Spider-Men arrived, you could enjoy it but you would have enjoyed it far more if you'd also watched Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man.
There are also potential spoilers to consider if you read ACOTAR 6 before Crescent City, but if you don't mind a few spoilers then it’s all good!
Many fans online also argue it will be more essential to have read Crescent City before ACOTAR 7 comes out on January 12. So you've got a few months to get caught up.
Why do people think ACOTAR 6 is linked to Crescent City?
*If you've not read the Crescent City series and don't want spoilers, look away now.*
Okay, so books two and three in the Crescent City series both feature major crossovers with ACOTAR, which some fans argue would then suggest there's likely to be a crossover coming in the new arc.
At the end of book two in the Crescent City series, House of Sky and Breath, the last line of the novel sees Rhysand appear and say to the character Bryce, “Hello, Bryce Quinlan. My name is Rhysand.”
And in the third book House of Flame and Shadow, Rhysand and the inner circle interrogate Bryce, only to learn the Asteri Bryce is fighting at home are actually descended from the Daglan, the evil force Rhys’s family vanquished many years ago.
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There are also other crossovers, such as the Horn Bryce's friend Danika has discovered, which belongs to the Dread Trove that the Night Court discovered in A Court of Silver Flames. And it's also revealed Azriel's dagger Truth-Teller has a twin in Bryce’s Starsword. Bryce also works with Azriel and Nesta to navigate the tunnel system by the prison.
With these crossovers and more, it seems only natural that we'd then expect to see characters such as Bryce pop up in the new ACOTAR.
However, Sarah J. Maas rarely leaves her readers completely in the dark and so if there is a crossover, we expect she'll set up explanations within the novel for those readers who haven't read Crescent City.
A Court of Splintered Harmony is out now.