Red Queen
Quotes from the Book
If I am a sword, I am a sword made of glass, and I feel myself beginning to shatter.
No one is born evil, just like no one is born alone. They become that way, through choice and circumstance.
No heart can ever be truly understood. Not even your own.
No one is born a monster. But I wish some people were. It would make it easier to hate them, to kill them, to forget their dead faces.
We seem weak because we want to.
Strange, my enemies know me best, and my family doesn’t know me at all.
I fear being alone more than anything else. So why do I do this? Why do I push away the people I love? What is so very wrong with me? I don’t know. And I don’t know how to make it stop.
Every single thing I did, you stood behind me,” I say. “If I’m turning into a monster, then so are you.” “Love blinds.
It isn't hard to let people die when their deaths give life to something else.
The thing with heat is, no matter how cold you are, no matter how much you need warmth, it always, eventually, becomes too much.
I am a weapon made of flesh, a sword covered in skin. I was born to kill a king, to end a reign of terror before it can truly begin.
Don’t lie to a liar, and Maven is the grandest liar of all.
Attend to your own fate, Mare Barrow.” “And that is?” “To rise. And rise alone.
But I can’t shake the feeling that, while they stand with me, there’s no one beside me. Even with an army at my back, I am still alone.
Fire and lightning raised Maven up, and fire and lightning will bring him down.
No matter how much I might want to feel him, I cannot. I must keep my eyes ahead, and away from the fire of a fallen prince. I must freeze my heart to the one person who insists on setting it ablaze.
I’m starting to think you like prisons,” he says, idling knocking his knuckles against the wall. “And that you have the worst taste in men.
One dark night I spilled my secrets to him, on a road thick with summer heat. I was the girl who tried to steal his money then. Now, winter looms, and I’m the girl who stole his life.
I suppose I should get used to being alone too. Not in the world, but in here. In my heart. Part
We can’t choose who we love. I wish, more than anything, that we could.
It’s not something you can control, Mare,” he replies, still standing so far away. “We can’t choose who we love. I wish, more than anything, that we could.” I feel cracked open. My skin still runs hot from Cal’s embrace, remembering the feel of him only moments ago. But in the deepest part of me, in spite of every fiber of my being, I think beyond the clearing, to ice-colored eyes, an empty promise, and a kiss aboard a boat.
Mare of the Stilts died the day she fell onto a lightning shield. Mareena, the lost Silver princess, died in the Bowl of Bones. And I don’t know what new person opened her eyes on the Undertrain. I only know what she has been and what she has lost, and the weight of it is almost crushing.
I must freeze my heart to the one person who insists on setting it ablaze. Winding
I’m safer than I’ve been in days, surrounded by the people I love most, and yet I’ve never wanted to cry more. For them, I hold back. I curl inward and bleed alone, inside, where no one else can see.
Maven lies as easily as he breathes, and his mother holds his leash but not his heart.
You’ll find I’m remarkably good at giving orders, and particularly awful at following them.
You came here with so many more followers, but you lost the ones you left with.
Did you know?
- Glass Sword is the second book in Victoria Aveyard's four-book Red Queen series.
- It was published by HarperTeen on February 9, 2016.
- The novel was a Goodreads Choice Award nominee for Readers' Favorite Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction in 2016.
- The story is set in the kingdom of Norta, a world divided between the ruling Silvers and the oppressed Reds.
- The book introduces 'newbloods' — Reds who, like Mare, possess Silver-like abilities.
- It is the sequel to Aveyard's debut novel, Red Queen.
About Victoria Aveyard
More by Victoria Aveyard
All books by Victoria Aveyard →About the book
Glass Sword is the second novel in Victoria Aveyard's Red Queen young-adult fantasy series, published by HarperTeen in 2016. It picks up immediately after the events of Red Queen, following Mare Barrow, a red-blooded commoner who nonetheless possesses a Silver's power to control lightning. Having escaped the murderous betrayal of Maven, the prince-turned-king who deceived her, Mare discovers she is not the only one of her kind, and she sets out with the rebel Scarlet Guard to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver 'newbloods' before Maven can hunt them down.
As Mare travels across the kingdom of Norta gathering newbloods for the rebellion, she is pursued relentlessly by Maven and grows increasingly ruthless in the fight. The novel's central tension lies in her fear of becoming the very kind of monster she is trying to defeat, a moral darkening deepened by grief and betrayal. Themes of systemic oppression, inequality between Silvers and Reds, and the corrupting cost of rebellion run throughout the book.
Glass Sword builds on the momentum of the bestselling Red Queen and continues one of the more popular YA fantasy series of the 2010s. It was a #1 New York Times bestseller and a Goodreads Choice Award nominee, and it set up the later series entries King's Cage and War Storm. The book ends on a stark note, with Mare's fate turning on a devastating personal sacrifice.
Key characters
- Mare BarrowRed-blooded protagonist who can control lightning
- CalExiled Silver prince and trained warrior allied with Mare
- MavenThe newly crowned king who betrayed Mare and hunts her
- Shade BarrowMare's brother, a newblood with teleportation powers
- KilornMare's childhood friend who joins her group
- FarleyScarlet Guard officer fighting the Silver regime
- The ColonelFarley's father and a Scarlet Guard leader
Book details
- First published
- 2016
- Length
- 444 pages
- Reading time
- 27 hours
- Author
- Victoria Aveyard
- Genre
- Fantasy
- Goodreads rating
- 3.77 (436k ratings) →
Series & reading order
- 1 Red Queen
- 2 Glass Sword
- 3 King's Cage
- 4 War Storm
If you liked this, read…
- 1Red QueenThe first book in the same series, establishing Mare's world
- 2An Ember in the AshesYA fantasy of rebellion against a cruel ruling power
- 3Shatter MeYA fantasy with a young heroine wielding a dangerous power
Keep reading
Red Queen
The Cruel Prince
An Ember in the Ashes
The Stolen Heir
When the Moon Hatched
War Storm
King's Cage
The Wicked King
Prince of Thorns
Ice Like Fire
Hunted
Volition
Snow Like Ashes
A Reaper at the Gates
A Great and Terrible Beauty
Glint
Falling Kingdoms
Red Rising
The Queen of Traitors
Dark Triumph
Cruel Beauty
Violet Made of Thorns
Nightmarish Sacrifice
The Young Elites
These Hollow Vows
King of Thorns
Narcissus in Chains
To Kill a Kingdom
A Torch Against the Night
Relentless
Dangerous Creatures
An Artificial Night
Oathbound
The Wolf and the Woodsman
Lightbringer
A Promise of Fire
Five Broken Blades
Golden Son
Gathering Darkness
Marrow
Furyborn
The Mirror King
Destroy Me
Insurgent
Mortal Heart
Kingdom of the Feared
The Iron Thorn
The Rose Society
Slaying the Vampire Conqueror
Cerulean Sins
Iron Widow
Blood And Gold
Heart on Fire
Watch Me
Mind Games
Medea
The Immortal Rules
The Queen of All that Dies
Indebted
Send Me Their Souls

