The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J. Maas | Review

title: the assassin’s blade

author: sarah j. mass

series: throne of glass #0.1-0.5

page count: 448

publication: march 4, 2014

publisher: bloomsbury

format: hardcover

source: library

Celaena Sardothien is Adarlan’s most feared assassin. As part of the Assassin’s Guild, her allegiance is to her master, Arobynn Hamel, yet Celaena listens to no one and trusts only her fellow killer-for-hire, Sam. In these action-packed novellas – together in one edition for the first time – Celaena embarks on five daring missions. They take her from remote islands to hostile deserts, where she fights to liberate slaves and seeks to avenge the tyrannous. But she is acting against Arobynn’s orders and could suffer an unimaginable punishment for such treachery. Will Celaena ever be truly free? Explore the dark underworld of this kick-ass heroine to find out.

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This book contains 5 prequel novellas, but I’ll just write this review as a whole instead of about each.

But first, I just want to have a little conversation about Sam. I mean if you all have been keeping up with my reviews, then you know I’m team Dorian, but Sam, I didn’t expect that, I mean it’s one thing to read Celeana remembering him, but it’s another to actually meet him and to see their story unfold. Sam really is goals, he’s the ultimate ship, I mean Dorian is definitely endgame now, but Sam would’ve been too. They were so good together, it was beautiful seeing them fighting side by side, and just he didn’t deserve what happened to him. Also, I don’t know if it’s just me, but Sam really reminded me of Dorian, you’d think that since he was a warrior he’d remind me of Chaol, but nope.

Anyways, I enjoyed this book, I mean the first 2 novellas were just okay, but the last three were pretty amazing.

From now on there might be mild spoilers, but nothing too bad.

My favorite out of the 5 would probably be The Empire, or The Underworld, and I really enjoyed The Desert as well. I think The Healer was my least favorite because not much happened. The Pirate Lord is the first mission we see with her and Sam, and they started off as nemesis’ but it was so nice seeing the ending of that series, because it’s really the turning point in their relationship. Also, what I loved about these novellas is that so many things click, I mean if you remember when Celeana said in Throne of Glass that she’d freed 200 slaves, well we get to see that. It was so nice to see Celeana pre- Endovier, she’s really changed a lot, there were times in this book where she was being bitchy for no reason, but she’s a lot different in Throne of Glass. Remember in Crown of Midnight when she told the boys about the Asterion horse she’d once stolen? Well we also get to see that, then also when she killed Yellowlegs and said that a friend had once told her that the only way to kill a witch was to cut off her head? We meet that friend as well.

Then we also see Dorian and Chaol in there, and it was beautiful, like how can anyone tell me Dorian isn’t endgame, I mean……….. He met her before all of this went down, and they had such a great interaction, I’m surprised that neither of them seem to remember, and Chaol was also there of course guarding the prince, but he’s irrelevant in all this.

The most heartbreaking thing about all this, you know how Celeana always says “I’m Celeana Sardothien and I will not be afraid” ? (this might be a slight spoiler, well it just came as a surprise to me so I don’t want to ruin it for you guys so if you wanna read this then just highlight–> Well it was actually Sam’s line first. |

When Sam left to kill Rourke I was crying because I knew what was coming and then seeing Celeana go through all of this, feeling so guilty….Then there was the scene where she sees his body……

We actually find out who it is betrayed her, I mean in the series, she has her suspicions, but we actually find out for sure, and it’s fucked up on so many levels, I mean the reasoning beyond it all is so fucked up.

Anyways, leave your thoughts below? What’d you think of darling Sam Cortland?

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