I Am a Weapon of my Master’s Molding, But I Shall Do What I Please

The Assassin’s Blade

Rating: 4.0/5

Summary: Prequel to the Throne of Glass Series. See how Celaena trains and runs missions for the King of Assassins, Arobynn Hamel. In the first novella, Celaena is sent to Skull’s Bay, with Sam Cortland as her backup, to seal a deal between the Pirate Lord & Arobynn. After finding out what Arobynn truly wants with the Pirate Lord, Celaena defies her master, ruins the port and their distasteful deal. Upon arriving home she is beaten and sent to find the Silent Assassins to train. After six months she comes back from the desert changed and ready to leave the home she’s made with Arobynn & his guild though not all goes according to plan. This contains five novellas.

I loved these novellas and I think it’s a great idea to read them before you start with the Throne of Glass series. I read them after ToG and it wasn’t a problem either. It’s better to read them beforehand because you get the backstory of Celaena in a full sitting rather than in pieces from the main series. It also has Sam Cortland so you need to read this. These stories are full of action, romance and Celaena’s sass I had come to know and love from ToG.

These novella show how deeply the scars of Arobynn’s training run through Celaena, you also get a taste of Arobynn himself and let me tell you, he’s a douche. The moment he walked onto the page, I hated him. He’s a cunning & manipulative puppeteer and he knows exactly of which strings to pull on Celaena. He is a genius, which I can admire, but he’s wrecked lives and done terrible things for which I cannot forgive.

You meet a multitude of new characters in the novellas from Irene, a hopeful healer student to Ansel, a brash and motivated young woman. I loved each novella for its original characters who come alive under Maas’s pen. The world building continues as Celaena sees more of the southern parts of the continent and so does the foreshadowing. One of my favorite things about this series is the foreshadowing. It’s so lovely and it’s in every book so far. I highly suggest reading this prequel since it shows you a lot about Celaena’s character development and it’s plain awesome!