Sarah Janet Maas (born March 5, 1986), known professionally as Sarah J. Maas, is a
young adult and adult
fantasy author (there's a bit of debate over some of her books straddling the line between young adult and adult, primarily due to the sexual content). She started out writing and uploading stories to FictionPress, including
Queen of Glass in 2003, the story that later became
Throne of Glass. In 2012 the reworked version of
Queen of Glass was formally published and quickly became a bestseller. Since then Maas has written several other successful books, both in the
Throne of Glass series and beyond.
Her works with pages on this site include:
Her other works include:
- The Starkillers Cycle (2014 - 2017): a free online story co-authored with Susan Dennard
Some tropes related to Maas include:
- Attention Deficit Creator Disorder: Midway through writing Throne of Glass, Maas began co-writing The Starkillers Cycle (which was abandoned by 2017) and started work on A Court of Thorns and Roses. And then immediately after finishing Throne of Glass in 2018, she began writing the Crescent City series alongside ACOTAR. The same year the last TOG book came out she also published Catwoman Soulstealer; in 2018 she in fact released three books, and Kingdom of Ash wasn't a short book either.
- Author Appeal:
- "Soulmates" show up in both Throne of Glass and A Court of Thorns and Roses, and in both series the Official Couple are revealed to be mates.
- Fairies, or rather faeries or fae. A Court of Thorns and Roses revolves around faeries and faerie courts, fae also show up in Throne of Glass with the main protagonist being revealed as part-fae and fae once again feature in Crescent City, in which the heroine is half-Fae.
- She really seems to like the Betty and Veronica, Betty and Veronica Switch, Romantic False Lead and False Soulmate tropes, as they show up in both Throne of Glass and A Court of Thorns and Roses: the heroines of both series are set up with a man who appears to be the ideal boyfriend, only for a supposed bad boy to come along and turn out to be their true love while the other suitor is revealed to be less-than-stellar as a romantic partner.
- Fairytale retellings, or stories inspired by fairytales and folktales. Throne of Glass started out as a darker, more action-packed "Cinderella" retelling (though it had drifted further from this by the final draft), while A Court of Thorns and Roses draws inspiration from "Beauty and the Beast", "Tam Lin", "East of the Sun and West of the Moon", "Snow White" and the Greek myths of Eros and Psyche and Hades and Persephone.
- Feminist Fantasy: A lot of her books have been considered this: all her series star powerful and strong-minded women as the protagonists, with lots of female supporting characters too. Some of her books also have themes around women overcoming or standing up to sexism, escape and recovery from domestic abuse and/or sexual violence, and finding romantic partners who empower them and treat them as equals. That being said, there has been some controversy over whether all of Maas' books can be considered good examples of Feminist Fantasy (especially with the A Court of Thorns and Roses series) due to the inclusion of certain plot developments and tropes (namely the use of the Fetishized Abuser trope and extremely vitriolic examples of Belligerent Sexual Tension and/or Slap-Slap-Kiss, among other issues).
- High Fantasy: Most of her books fall into this subgenre, set in worlds where magic and magical beings are common and the protagonists are fighting against a Sorcerous Overlord, which often involves quests to find magical artifacts and what-have-you.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes:
- The Starkillers Cycle was only available on Tumblr and appears to have been removed, so it's impossible to read now unless you have a copy saved somewhere.
- Maas removed Queen of Glass from FictionPress in 2008 so she could rewrite and formally publish the story as Throne of Glass, although there are copies of Queen of Glass to be found on the internet.
- Orphaned Series: The Starkillers Cycle, a serialized online Space Opera novel available on Tumblr that Maas was co-writing with fellow fantasy author Susan Dennard. It was first uploaded in 2014 but then stopped being updated and has since been taken down. It's been speculated this is because of Dennard and Maas breaking off their friendship (the details aren't public but it's been noted they no longer interact during interviews/panels or post about their friendship, and they've stopped following each other on social media).
- Shared Universe: While Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses and Crescent City are all set on different worlds with different types of beings and magic systems, they all exist in the same universe - different planets or planes of existence, but shown to be linked (the fanbase collectively refers to it as the "Maasverse"). Specific examples include:
- A copy of "The Book of Breathings" from A Court of Thorns and Roses is found in Jesiba's library in the Crescent City series.
- When Aelin falls through space and time during Kingdom of Ash, it is Rhysand from A Court of Thorns and Roses who sees her falling, reaches out, and slows her fall so that she can return to her own world.
- The Inner Circle from A Court of Thorns and Roses appear at the end of House of Sky and Breath (the second installment of Crescent City) and Rhysand is implied to be related to Ruhn given their strong resemblance.
- The early chapters of House of Flame and Shadow (book three of Crescent City) take place in Prythian (the setting of ACOTAR), which Bryce had travelled to from her own world at the end of the previous book.
