I have just finished the book The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J. Maas, a 434 page Fantasy novel. The Assassin’s Blade is the prequel to the Throne of Glass Series. Sarah J. Maas was born on March 5, 1986 (age 29) and  New York Times and USA Today bestselling American fantasy author who now lives in Pennsylvania. She has written 2 series, The Throne of Glass series and A Court of Thorns and Roses series. The Throne of Glass has been sold in twenty-three languages. To inspire her stories, Sarah listens to music and she’ll add more songs as she creates characters or scenes so to make a musical playlist of her story so the music is telling the same story as the book. I chose to read this book because I have read all the other books in the series and this was the only one I haven’t read. (Click here if you would like to see her playlists)

 

The Assassin’s Blade is told from the point of view of Caleana. The Assassin’s Blade has 5 smaller books inside it, The Assassin and the Pirate Lord, The Assassin and the Healer, The Assassin and the Desert, The Assassin and the Underworld, and The Assassin and the Empire. My favorite out of the five parts would be The Assassin and the Desert. Throughout the book the 5 small books tell the story of what happened before the events of The Throne of Glass series. It starts with Caleana, an assassin working for Arobynn Hamel (the King of the Assassins of Adarlan), who wants to stop the slave trade between Arobynn and the Pirate Lord but by stopping the slave trade she will be betraying her master Arobynn and also stopping the slave trade was not as easy as she thought it was. For one thing she needed the help of Sam, another assassin working for Arobynn. This whole book tells the story of how Caleana got into Endovier and how and who betrayed her to get her there.

 

The theme throughout this book would probably be love and betrayal because it shows the relationship between all the characters and how when things go wrong what people feel. I wish the author started the book a little earlier and wrote the book from when Caleana was just a child and still had her parents because then I could understand the series a little better. I liked the way the author created five different parts and gave them five different titles. It helped organize the sequence of events better and it really had different mini themes throughout the book like The Assassin and the Desert’s theme was mainly about betrayal.

 

One passage that really caught my attention was on page 186-187 in The Assassin and the Desert.

 

“The Master stood by the parapet, gazing across the desert. She cleared her throat, but he remained with his back to her.

The roof couldn’t have been more than twenty square feet, and the only thing on it was a covered reed basket placed in the center, Torches burned, illuminating the rooftop.

Celaena cleared her throat again, and the master finally turned. She bowed, which, strangely, was something she felt he actually deserved, rather than something she ought to do. He gave her a nod and pointed to the reed basket, beckoning her to open the lid. Doing her best not to look skeptical, hoping there was a beautiful new weapon inside, she approached. She stopped when she heard the hissing.

Unpleasant, don’t-come-closer hissing. From inside the basket.

She turned to the Master, who hopped onto one of the merlons, his bare feet dangling in the gap between one block of stone and the next, and beckoned her again. Palms sweating, Celaena took a deep breath and snatch back the lid. A black asp curled into itself, head drawn back low as it hissed.

Celaena leapt away a yard, making for the parapet wall, but the Master let out a low click of his tongue.

His hands moved, flowing and winding through the air like a river—like a snake. Observe it, he seemed to tell her. Move with it.

She looked back at the basket in time to see the slender, black head of the asp slide over the rim, then down to the tiled roof.

Her heart thundered in her chest. it was poisonous, wasn’t it? It had to be. It looked poisonous.

The snake slithered across the roof, and Celaena inched back from it, not daring to look away for even a heartbeat. She reached for a dagger, but the Master again clicked his tongue. A glance in his direction was enough for her to understand the meaning of the sound.

Don’t kill it. Absorb.

The snack moved effortlessly, lazily, and tasted the evening air with its black tongue. With deep, steadying breath, Celaena observed.”
In this passage the author really shows how to develop character traits of the main character. It really showed that Celaena was not used to observing things but to just kill something that might be a threat. The author added character traits of non observant and obedience which in other books is harder to find as her character trait. This passage also helped me to understand the character better and make more connections with her. I would rate this book a 10 out of 10.