Let's Talk Erotica: ACO Silver Flames
A 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ pull from the archive.
Enjoy this spicey archived piece today; add some heat to your hump day. One year ago today, Sydney and I discussed our reactions to the (at the time) latest installment of the A Court of Thorns and Roses series. This one, A Court of Silver Flames, took the spice-factor to a whole other degree and the book can, and should, be filed under smut.
A Court of Silver Flames, the fifth installment of Sarah J Maas’ New York Times bestselling series, A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR), was released earlier this year and both being avid fans, Sydney and I demanded a time and place to voice our opinions. A Court of Thorns and Roses and the subsequent three other books (two novels, one novella) follow Feyre and Rhysand’s relationship. It is well known that this series has a degree of spiciness; Feyre and Rhysand go from enemies to allies to mates and the sexual tension is thick. So when this fifth book was announced and it would be about Nesta, one of Feyre’s human sisters that also gets pulled into the fairy world unwillingly. Could Maas still captivate her audience without giving us more Feyre and Rhysand, the couple that has given us life for four years? We were skeptical, but having both finished this near 800-page behemoth of a book, it’s safe to say we have a lot of feelings.
The conversation below does discuss the events of the entire ACOTAR series, but mostly spoilers from A Court of Silver Flames.
Sydney Weinshel: When did you first read A Court of Thorns and Roses?
Shelby Lueders: Probably 2015, 2016. I have the paperback copy of ACOTAR, versus every other edition (minus the fourth book) being in hardback.
SW: So you basically read it as it was coming out. You’re an OG Stan, I’m a newbie. But we both were coming into A Court Of Silver Flames like “this book is unnecessary” and “this is money grab” to suck in fans of ACOTAR.
SL: Oh yeah totally. I felt that the fourth book by itself was unnecessary—did I still preorder this special edition literary boxset with a bunch of swag? Yeah, I did. But as a longtime Stan, I didn’t expect to like the book as much as I did. Let’s be real when A Court of Frost and Starlight came out it was clear that we were done. And I was fine with that!
SW: And if we’re being honest, I could have been fine without that one too. It was a cute little Christmas novella. I didn’t learn anything from the story. It was fluffy and that was that.
SL: So I totally leaned into A Court of Silver Flames as being a money grab. Primarily because I didn’t enjoy Crescent City: House of Earth and Blood [Sarah J. Maas’s newest series) as much as I wish I had.
SW: Which I haven’t read yet, but I’m going to. Furthermore, if she was going to do a money grab, I felt like A Court of Wings and Ruin was pointing more towards Lucien and Elain. They were making a huge deal about them being mates and her not wanting him the way he wanted her. So without any context for ACOSF, except that it was a spinoff with one of Feyre’s sisters, I just assumed it was following Elain and Lucien’s story. To me, a book about Elain and Lucien made sense because she spent time at the end of ACOWAR harping on the fact that Elain and Lucien were mates and Elain wasn’t having it. Instead we got Nesta and Cassian.
SL: Totally true, though you know where I stand on Elain. I think she should be with Azriel, so I’m waiting for that story. I do feel like there was enough of Nesta/Cassian in Wings and Ruin to justify the book per se, but really when I saw how large it was, I had PTSD flashbacks to Crescent City.
SW: When you look back on the books, especially in ACOWAR and ACOFAS, there were signs of the Cassian/Nesta relationship unfolding, but not in the same way as Lucien and Elain. When I found out the pairing for this book, I really didn't understand why. The only context I had going into this was from TikTok videos about the sex scenes. I just knew that Silver Flames was—
SL: HOT
SW: Spicy! Like FanFiction level spice. SJ Maas really said, “Hold my beer.”
SL: I truly didn’t know where she was trying to go with Silver Flames. In my head, if A Court of Frost and Starlight was unnecessary and Crescent City didn’t wow me, what was the point of this one? But then I read it and man, Sara J Maas went there.
SW: Okay, so the way I found out about ACOTAR was from TikTok. The way the TikTok algorithm works is it basically knows you better than you know yourself. Like, I liked one video of Harry Styles in December and suddenly I was exclusively getting Harry Styles content, which led to me breaking into the world of HS Fanfiction, which landed me on BookTok (spicy BookTok). All this is to say, ACOTAR rules BookTok. It has to be the most recommended series on BookTok.
SL: I believe this.
SW: So first I was getting these out-of-context videos of bat boys and ACOTAR and I didn’t even know what that stood for, they weren't using the full name. But every video was Mist and Fury spice. I went into this thinking this was straight porn and no plot.
SL: Interesting!
SW: Because everyone just sexualizes this book and series. And the other books I was being recommended were smut-no-plot books. I just finished an eight-book anthology series, which is also another highly recommended series on BookTok for different reasons, and it’s about an Ivy League hockey team. They’re all simpy, golden retriever boys. The plots are “We had to pretend to be a couple and then we fell in love!”
SL: Which is not at all how these books are.
SW: Not at all! Mist and Fury is a top-five book. It’s so good. But I truly went into this thinking that the spice was UP HERE [raises hand above my head], but it's actually few and far between. If you were to tab the book with sexy scenes, there are really only four or five tabs. If I were to tab this Ivy League hockey team book, it’s every page. So I thought that how Silver Flames was written—the spice level I was being told it contained—was how all the other books were and they weren’t. Not to this level.
SL: I was *astonished* that SJ Maas went that hard.
SW: She was like “Oh you thought that was spicy??”
SL: Like jaw-dropping, she just fucking did that and did it for, I don’t know, six hundred pages? I’m looking at a sexy scene in Mist and Fury. It’s before Feyre and Rhysand have actually had any form of sex, but the tension is super high. They’re Under the Mountain and she’s pretending to be his sex slave, sitting on his lap. And she’s wet. And it’s definitely hot. But the description of sexual completion in this book. The orgasms that are had in Silver Flames are so much more detailed. So here’s a quote from Mist and Fury: “Rhys roared as he came, slamming in to the hilt. Outside, the mountains trembled, the snow rushing from them in a cascade of glittering white, only to be swallowed up by the waiting night below” (533). These sentences make up Rhysand’s first orgasm; we get one to the point sentence and then the other describes the mountain trembling under his sheer masculine explosion. I would place a large bet on SJ Maas never using “spilling seed” (in reference to consensual sex) until Silver Flames.
SW: *Laughs really hard* If we’re talking about something I can do without, that’s one of them.
SL: No, see I’m into semen play, so I was here for that. I was just shocked.
SW: I just do not want to refer to it as seed!
SL: Just for context, here are some phrases snagged from Silver Flames while I randomly flipped through: “Cassian fucked her mouth, and her moaning had him deciding he’d fuck the rest of her, too,” “[Cassian’s] wings tucked in tight as he came, and each spurt of his cock shuddered through his pants, echoing along her hand as she stroked and stroked him,” and a personal favorite “‘Are you always this wet for me, Nesta?’” Silver Flames is 751 pages and at least half of that is just Cassian and Nesta fucking like wild animals. This book is porn.
SW: Besides the sex, I instantly thought that Silver Flames could be a standalone book.
SL: Elaborate. Cause I’m thinking does the library connect?
SW: I feel that if someone who didn’t read the other four books probably wouldn’t get the importance of those scenes, but they wouldn’t be confused.
SL: Okay, fair, I’m sold.
SW: They would miss things, but they wouldn’t be confused. If someone just wanted to read this for the spice, they could go into this book and enjoy it without it being too hard to understand. But as people who read the other books, we weren’t shocked when Cassian and Nesta were mates. They needed to be chaperoned by Azriel just as Cassian did for Feyre and Rhysand. So when they were like “Oh, we’re mates” I was like No Shit! Of course, you are! I feel like she [SJ Maas] was trying to build it up into this moment, but we all already knew they were.
SL: See but I bought into the build-up! Yeah, we totally knew they were mates, but Nesta was in such a bad mental place that she couldn’t, wouldn’t accept that she was worthy of love. The way SJ Maas addresses mental health was much deeper than in the other books. Depression, anxiety, trauma are all present in the other books, but being inside Nesta’s mine was dark, scary, and realistic. My mind has looked like that. Nesta did not want to accept that anyone could be mated with her. While it was obvious to us as the reader and the other characters, she was in such a bad place that it truly didn’t occur to her.
SW: Okay, connecting back to how I wished this book was about Elain, I feel that Nesta’s reaction to being Made and post-war felt out of character. Nesta had nothing when she was a human—Elain was getting married and she was going to be an old spinster with a shitty fuck boy on the side. So in my opinion, as the reader, Nesta should have been the one to embrace being Made (even though there would still be trauma, of course). But it felt like she should have been the one to adjust immediately and Elain is the one with a full breakdown.
SL: Well, Elain kind of did have a full breakdown after the war.
SW: But it was over pretty quickly. I think it would have been really interesting to see Elain in the position Nesta was in, as an alcoholic and sex addict because of how prim and proper she was as a human. I felt Nesta’s reaction to everything was unsubstantiated.
SL: See, but Nesta was always angry. She has first-child syndrome. She was adored by her mother and then her mother was dead and the life she knew, the life she was spoiled and accustomed to, was taken away. Then she saw her father do nothing to stop this change, though this is her story, we don’t actually know if he did try anything. She was blinded by hatred; she didn’t care that Feyre risked her life daily to get them food. The only thing she’s ever cared about is Elain. You’re right, she had nothing as a human and entered the faerie world with an eternity of nothing.
SW: Here’s what I think should have happened: Frost and Starlight should have been a real, 500-page book. As someone who read this series back-to-back, I didn’t feel that there was enough justification and context for their reactions in Silver Flames. Frost and Starlight had the opportunity to set everything up, where Nesta could be sad, have a hissy fit, then allow Silver Flames to begin (as it did) with the team forcing her into rehab, changing her diet, making her train.
SL: What are your thoughts on her and her dad’s relationship?
SW: Honestly? Kind of a stretch.
SL: *gasps*
SW: So we don’t know what happened after Feyre was taken by Tamlin to the Spring Court. We don’t know how or if the relationship with their father got better once they were no longer poor. But what we do know is that Nesta knew what had happened, she’s known all along, while Elain and their father were enchanted to forget. To me, she had a bad relationship with her father—that was clear—but then, in Silver Flames, she was extremely traumatized. It wasn’t lining up for me. The justification of her trauma was hidden there, but we only got a half-assed portion of it.
SL: Okay, but I totally felt that the father piece was the most consistent. She carried her grudge against her father throughout the entire series, so it’s only natural that his death affected her.
SW: It’s not that it wasn’t consistent, it just didn’t feel like a good enough reason. It didn’t line up to me. Elain, and even Feyre, had a better relationship with their father insinuating that they’d be more damaged after his death. Nesta hated her father, so why was she the most traumatized by his death? I felt that there was other trauma she could have written about that would have made more sense to me.
SL: What did you think about the Valkyrie?
SW: That was my favorite part of the book.
SL: Besides the sex stuff.
SW: Besides the sex stuff. And that storyline makes way for more books that do not hinge on this [Cassian/Nesta] relationship only.
SL: Do you like Nesta and Cassian together?
SW: Yeah, I definitely like them together. SJ Maas writes female trauma really well. Take Mist and Fury, that entire book is about Feyre dealing with the trauma from the trials—
SL: And what Tamlin was putting her through.
SW: Yes, and she wrote Rhysand in a way that was supportive and loving, but in a way that wasn’t him trying to be everything for her. This is important and what makes the books good. She doesn’t allow her female characters to be “saved” by the men in their lives. Feyre really rebels against Tamlin when he starts doing that. So if she wanted to go forward with more books, the Valkyrie can carry them. Even with Azriel, we could get his point of view and training with the Valkyrie.
SL: We definitely need an Azriel story.
SW: Loved the Valkyries, loved her friendship with Gywn and Emerie. I could totally see that becoming the new storyline.
SL: She writes female power and trauma really well.
SW: She writes flawed female characters really well. Feyre and Nesta are both super annoying, but you don’t hate them. Except I hate the name “Nesta.” It’s such a gross name.
SL: I just love how successful she is in showing the female characters discovering themselves. And I don’t entirely mean sexually, but more their inner female power. But SJ Maas doesn’t give them power easily. It took two whole books for Feyre to figure out who she’s supposed to be. Her leading ladies aren’t just good and powerful as a simple adjective, they’re deeply flawed. They experience bad shit and they’re still so strong.
[brief pause]
SL: What did you think about her relationship with the house?
SW: *eyes widen* I loooove the house. The house is my favorite character.
SL: We love the house.
SW: I love that the house is a romance reader!
SL: Yes! *House throws book at Nesta* “Here’s my smut, read it.”
SW: And everyone else is just like “The house is sentient?” They’ve lived there for 500 years and the house has never delivered them a book. Nesta lives there for one month and they're best friends.
SL: What did you think of Feyre and Rhysand’s life oath? Where if one of them dies, they both die—which was important because it’s likely she could die in childbirth, killing all three of them.
SW: Maybe because they went through so much, it probably isn’t fair to put them through anything like that again. But they're just too happy. *laughs* Like have a fucking fight or something. In fact, I wish that there were more scenes with Feyre upset at Rhysand (and everyone else) for lying to her about how dangerous her pregnancy is. That is a BigLie™. I get that it wasn’t about them, but—
SL: Maybe you could have Feyre turn to Nesta out of confidence and have that sisterly bonding moment, while also giving us a glimpse at Feyre and Rhysand’s relationship.
SW: Yeah it was a missed opportunity. Everyone was lying to her about her pregnancy.
SL: So we’re to assume that Nesta gave some of her power back to the Cauldron in order to save Feyre and the newborn’s life? And also somehow change Feyre’s and her own anatomy so they could have more bat babies in the future without risking death again?
SW: Yeah kind of a stretch. So much time is put into explaining how destructive and unprecedented Nesta’s power is.
SL: She is literally death.
SW: I’m not a fan of when an author deals with problems in a book by creating a character that is omnipotent. That feels like a cop-out.
SL: It’s a cheat code.
SW: It’s the “Rosebud” cheat code for The Sims. But yes, we’re to assume that she gives some of her power back to the Cauldron. But oh my gods, could you imagine if she actually gave some of the power to the kid.
SL: Woaaaah.
SW: What if their kid becomes mad evil!
SL: What was his name again?
SW: Did they name him?
SL: *Flips through Silver Flames* Nyx.
SW: *Groans* I hate that. That also feels like an evil kid name.
SL: Okay, is this book an instant re-read?
SW: So Mist and Fury is still my favorite. When I was reading ACOTAR, I knew that she ended up with Rhysand, but in that first book, I was questioning why she would leave Tamlin. SJ Maas spent AN ENTIRE BOOK building their relationship, convincing us that she loves Tamlin so much. She’s willing to sacrifice herself for him, only to completely flip and spend the entire next book talking about how evil he is. Mist and Fury got me! But even though it is my favorite, since Silver Flames can more or less stand on its own, it’s easier to reread—and spicier.
SL: I’d say that I’m at that place where I can pick up Mist and Fury at any time. The first two books, in particular, I’ve read at least four times each and my ACOTAR tattoo is a symbol from Mist and Fury. When you’re on that end of the spectrum, you can pick up any part of it. Like with Harry Potter too.
SW: Yeah, my favorite Harry Potter book is The Prisoner of Azkaban and I can pick that up at any point.
SL: After finishing the first book for the first time, I knew instantly that this was my favorite book series ever before I’d even read the sequel, which only further cemented this notion. Maas totally outdid herself—again—with Silver Flames and I am wholly recommitted (not that I was anything else) to Feyre, Rhysand, Nesta, Cassian, the Night Court, all of it. Ms. Maas, you can take all my money, I’m forever indebted to you.
Shit We’re Loving: LISTEN
Sydney’s not-archived pick: “for the unhinged girlies” playlist
I asked Sydney for a SWL: Listen pick and she did not disappoint. Check out her latest playlist, “for the unhinged girlies.” It’s 4+ hours of not-so-easy but definitely v cute listening.
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Patience (since I’m three hours late…)
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