Many quarters of Velaris are full of townhouses with green copper roofs and white chimneys. The city's buildings are crafted out of white marble, warm sandstone, and the same red stone of the flat-topped mountains that can be found on the northern edge of the city. To the north are different kinds of mountains that surround the city across the river, which are a range of sharp peaks comparable to fish teeth cut through city's hills from the sea beyond. Their middle and larger peak has holes and windows built in the uppermost part of it, in fact, there is where the House of Wind, Rhysand's house for official business, caan be found. At the northern edge of Velaris, curved to where the river bent toward them and flowed into their shadows, tower, like eternal guardians of the city, a wall of flat-topped mountains of red stone. The Sidra River has ships with sails of varying shapes placed along it permanently, making it navigable. The hills are flanked by a broad, winding river the color of the deepest sapphire, the Sidra River, that snakes across the landscape into the sea. There are still plenty of them to enjoy.Velaris is built like a crust atop rolling, steep hills.

For those of you that enjoy these scenes, never fear. However, I was pleasantly surprised that for her, she did not overdo it. In fact, she has quite the surprise up her sleeve that will have fans in a theorizing frenzy until her next book comes out.Īlso of note, with Maas writing solely in the Adult Fantasy genre now, I was expecting her well known sexy scenes to be a prominent feature in this book (both in frequency and description). Instead of building out the physical world of Midgard, Maas dives deeper into the lore and history of it. We do see the group venture outside of Crescent City, but until the climax of the book, it is just to the surrounding area. Many fans will be expecting to discover more of Midgard in House of Sky and Breath, but that is not necessarily the case. Ruhn’s story in particular kept me most interested as it involves a key mystery of the book.įinally, we have to discuss world building. I found myself engaged in all the perspectives with very few slow points.

With all these character interactions and intersecting perspectives, the book moves along fairly quickly despite its length. It raised questions of what makes some a friend, enemy or potential ally. I also greatly enjoyed the intrigue caused by the new angels and a new Fae brought to the city. Allowing these characters to participate more in the narrative allows Maas to tackle some different conversations about friendship. That includes Juniper, Fury, Flynn and Declan. In addition to the new perspectives, Maas allows some of her secondary characters to engage more in this story.

House of breath and sky