The Assassin's Blade (Throne of Glass 0.1 - 0.5) by Sarah J. Maas

🌟🌟🌟🌟 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Synopsis:

Contains all five novellas.

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.

These novellas explained so much about Celaena and where she came from. It was easy to understand why she acted the way that she did in Throne of Glass. I don't know that I would be much different if I went through everything that she did throughout these stories. She suffered betrayals at the hands of so many people close to her. She was beaten, scarred, and survived despite friends dying around her. I felt anger and grief for her. Every time that I thought that she would even the playing field between her and her enemies (seen and unseen) she suffered another setback. I wanted her to have her revenge and I hope that she gets that in one of the books in the Throne of Glass series. 
I appreciated the fact that there was a fluidity to the novellas so that it felt like it was one cohesive story. I also liked how there was so much action and tension between the characters in each of the stories making each of them exciting. Fair warning though....this is not a happy tale which would seem obvious based on the beginning of Throne of Glass but be prepared.