73 pages • 2 hours read
Sarah J. MaasA Court of Thorns and Roses
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 23-31Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 23 Summary
Tamlin and Feyre visit a beautiful glen. Tamlin kisses Feyre on her eyelids, allowing her to see and hear the world as the faeries do. Tamlin explains that he glamoured her senses when she first arrived so that she would not be afraid. Tamlin demands a kiss in exchange for increasing Feyre’s senses, and she playfully kisses him on the hand. They lie together peacefully.
Chapter 24 Summary
Feyre can now see the faeries of Tamlin’s court as they truly are; insectoid gardeners buzz across the grounds, and Alis’s true tree-human-hybrid form is revealed. Lucien explains that they removed her glamour now that Feyre has become more comfortable in Prythian.
The next day, Feyre finds the head of a High Fae on a stake in the garden. The head is branded with the sigil of the Night Court, and Tamlin and Lucien take it as a message that the Night Court knows that the Spring Court is weakened by the blight. Tamlin says the head is the High Lord of the Night Court’s idea of a prank. Feyre, disturbed by faerie violence, is unable to paint that day.
Chapter 25 Summary
The threat to the Spring Court border grows, and Feyre worries for Tamlin. On the Summer Solstice, Alis dresses Feyre in a gown and flower headdress for the celebration. Feyre drinks faerie wine, despite Lucien’s warning, and dances giddily. Tamlin plays the fiddle expertly and dances with her. Tamlin takes Feyre away from the party to watch will-o’-the-wisps at sunrise. Tamlin kisses Feyre passionately, and Feyre finally understands hope.
Chapter 26 Summary
At lunch the next day, Lucien dampens Feyre’s and Tamlin’s mood by sharing the news that 24 faerie younglings were killed by the blight at the Winter Court. Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court and Feyre’s rescuer on Calanmai, appears suddenly, and Lucien and Tamlin hide Feyre. Rhysand and Tamlin trade taunts, and Lucien calls Rhysand “Amarantha’s whore.” Amarantha is revealed to be the mysterious “she” behind the blight. Rhysand mentions a place called “Under the Mountain” (237) and marvels that Tamlin has “resigned to [his] fate” (235). Rhysand notices that the table is set for three and discovers Feyre behind Lucien. Rhysand possesses Feyre’s mind and exposes her sexual longing for Tamlin, humiliating her. Rhysand forces Tamlin and Lucien to grovel in exchange for not telling Amarantha about Feyre. Rhysand demands Feyre’s name, which she lies is “Clare Beddor,” the name of another girl from her village. Rhysand vanishes.
Chapter 27 Summary
Tamlin sends Feyre home, uncertain that he can keep her safe in Prythian any longer. Feyre worries that she is unlovable, referring to herself as “covered in thorns” (245). Tamlin promises he is not sending her away forever. They are sexually intimate several times. In the morning, Tamlin tells Feyre that he loves her, “thorns and all” (248).
Chapter 28 Summary
As Feyre prepares to leave, she hears Lucien beg Tamlin to give her more time. Tamlin is adamant that Feyre leave immediately. Feyre gives Tamlin all her paintings as a gift, and, as he helps her into the carriage, Tamlin tells Feyre again that he loves her. Feyre wants to say it back but fears it will cause him pain. Tamlin enchants Feyre to sleep for the two-day journey home.
Feyre arrives at her family’s new estate under the guise that the wealthy aunt she was visiting has died and left Feyre her fortune. Shortly after she disappeared, Feyre’s father gained a wealthy investment client, and all of his lost ships and wealth were recovered. Feyre knows Tamlin is responsible. Elain is ecstatic at Feyre’s return, and Feyre’s father orders a ball to celebrate. Nesta is suspiciously quiet. Feyre remembers the Suriel’s command to “Stay with the High Lord” (254) and worries she made a mistake.
Chapter 29 Summary
Feyre’s father is well again, and Elain happily tends a large garden on their estate. Elain tells Feyre that Nesta tried to visit Feyre but turned around and came back. Elain feels nostalgic for their run-down cabin after an awkward reintegration to wealthy society. Feyre realizes Elain’s strength of character and is proud of her. Feyre takes bags of money and goes to visit their old cottage and the village, pondering whether the cottage was a “prison” or a “shelter.”
Chapter 30 Summary
Feyre gives money to the impoverished villagers. She sees Tomas Mandray and wonders why Nesta didn’t marry him. She sees Isaac with his new wife and has nothing but kind feelings for him.
Feyre is distracted from preparations for the ball by her worry for Tamlin. Nesta reveals that Tamlin’s glamour didn’t work on her, and she remembers everything. Feyre is moved that Nesta tried to cross the wall and go after Feyre, though she couldn’t find a way through. Nesta didn’t marry Tomas Mandray because she “realized he wouldn’t have gone with me to save you from Prythian” (265). Feyre tells Nesta everything, and Nesta asks Feyre to teach her to paint. Nesta says that Feyre would never abandon Tamlin as their father abandoned their mother.
Chapter 31 Summary
Feyre spends the ball thinking only of Tamlin. The next day, Feyre’s father announces that he may buy the Beddor family land. The Beddors were recently all murdered, and Clare Beddor has disappeared. Feyre knows it is because she gave Clare’s name to Rhysand. Feyre warns her family that there is trouble in Prythian and to sail south at the first sign of danger. Nesta tells Feyre to go to Prythian and never come back. Feyre realizes Nesta is calculating, but not cruel. Feyre crosses through a break in the border wall and returns to Tamlin’s estate, but it is wrecked and deserted.
Chapters 23-31 Analysis
Just as Feyre’s and Tamlin’s love is firmly established, Maas separates the lovers to generate dramatic tension and transition to the more action-oriented latter third of the novel. This begins a new character arc for Feyre in which the strength of her love will be tested. Amarantha is at last revealed as the villain behind the blight, though Feyre remains unaware of Tamlin’s curse. Her concealment of her love to spare Tamlin any “burden” is ultimately ironic; Feyre admitting her love is the only way to save him and the Spring Court. Though she has learned vulnerability and intimacy, Feyre still lacks the confidence to declare her feelings openly, even though Tamlin declared his own. Instead, before she can inhabit her new self, Feyre must return home and take stock of how she and the world she once knew have changed.
Back in her village, the health and wealth of Feyre’s family indicates the depth of Tamlin’s generosity and care. Conversely, as Feyre reconciles with her past, her worry for Tamlin increases. Nesta becomes an unlikely source of support for Feyre, having been profoundly changed by her memories of Feyre’s abduction. As she discovered common ground with Tamlin, Feyre finds a savvy confidant in Nesta, who understands Feyre’s profound love for Tamlin via her own disappointment in the faithless Tomas Mandray. News of the murdered Beddor family provides Feyre with the final motivation she needs to return to Prythian. Her old life vanished, her family safe, Feyre pursues a future on her own terms, defined by love. Here, Maas borrows again from the classic version of Beauty and the Beast, in which Beauty returns home to visit her family before she realizes the true depth of her feelings for the Beast. This narrative strategy creates the opportunity for emphasizing character growth, and it functions as a pivot between the two plot arcs of the novel.
Maas also deepens her exploration of Sacrifice and Moral Compromise as the Duty of Love and Consent and Power Dynamics in Sexual Intimacy in this portion of the novel. The significance of the title is clear, as Feyre describes herself as too “thorny” to love. Tamlin accepts Feyre unconditionally, and his proclamation of loving her “thorns and all” (248) alludes to the rose garden which symbolizes his parents’ profound romance. Maas also explores questions of consent through Rhysand’s violation of Feyre’s mind. Humiliated by Rhysand’s intrusion, Feyre struggles with her decision to be sexually intimate with Tamlin before leaving the Spring Court. She acknowledges her conflicted feelings, describing how “Though the horror of Rhysand’s magic still tore at me, I pushed Tamlin on the bed, straddling him, pinning him as if it would somehow keep me from leaving, as if it would make time stop entirely” (245). Feyre’s ability to enjoy the intimacy has been decreased by Rhysand’s violation, suggesting that the sanctity of emotional and physical intimacy is defined by agency. True intimacy is shared willingly, Maas posits, and any act of compulsory intimacy is a moral transgression.
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