The Assassin and the Pirate Lord

Celaena Sardothien has been sent by the Assassin's Guild to collect a debt owed by the Pirate Lord. She is accompanied by her friendly rival Sam Cortland. Both have been with the Assassin's Guild since they were young children. Celaena is cocky, arrogant, a girly-girl who likes fancy clothes and manicures. She is also the best assassin in Erilea and only sixteen years old. When she and Sam arrive to collect their debt they find that they have been mislead. Instead of coin, they find that the leader of the Assassin's Guild is going into the slave trade. She and Sam are expected to bring about 100 slaves back home to me be sold. Celaena may be a killer but she can't stand slavery and determines to outwit the Pirate Lord and set the slaves show more free. The plan involves getting all the pirates drunk, starting fights, disabling the catapults aimed at the harbor, and lowering the chain that keeps the ships in. Two assassins against an island full of pirates. No problem...as long as one of them is Celaena Sardothien.

Good lead in to the Throne of Glass. show less

I read these novellas during the summer and they are fantastic! These are all prequels to the novel series, Throne of Glass, which is already out now. As of writing and publishing this review, I have yet to read the first novel, but reading these novellas completely sold me on buying the novel, so I have it waiting on my shelf.

These are fully realized, complete stories about the trained assassin, Celaena Sardothien, who is the number one assassin in her country of residence. There are, like a lot of fantasy novels, neighboring kingdoms and she does get to travel to some of the nearby kingdoms during her adventures in assassinating people. She's a funny girl and very much a girly-girl, despite being so deadly. She loves to wear pretty show more dresses and play the pianoforte. She starts out really spoiled and bratty at age 16, but, through her trials of these novellas, she matures.

I really like Sam, her childhood friend and rival assassin in the Assassin's Guild who becomes her love interest. Definitely no insta-love-upon-meeting-her-soul-mate-nonsense going on here. She just learns to see him a different way because they're both maturing before each others' eyes and he's become pretty darn good-looking in his young adulthood, ahem. I also hate, hate, HATE their boss Arobynn, who really is a truly worthy villain character. My lord, this man is so heinous and Machiavellian, it's sick. What he does to Celaena and Sam is beyond. I've never been so in hate with a villain character. It's pretty awesome.

Celaena doesn't spend a whole lot of time killing people because the stories are more about what she goes through that makes her become who she is by the time you read Book 1, and by then, she has spent some time as a slave/prisoner in the salt mines of Endovier due to the king's punishment. It really sets things up for the novel and I figure I'll have a much firmer grasp on it than would somebody else who just jumps into it without batting an eyelash at the novellas. I love having so much of the story set up and extra material for this amazing series. Check these out, people!

Average score for all four novellas: 4.5/5 stars. show less

Once again, I must say that I'm quite surprised with how much I liked this book. I didn't *love* it, but this is the kind of thing I would actually read more than once. Not only because the story is short and consistent, but also because it is somewhat captivating. You can feel the potential in the story and in the characters. At first I didn't really like Celaena because she was too arrogant, too "perfect". But when she shows her own weaknesses, that's when the story seems to take off. She has the potential to become an excellent character (as long as her "defects" don't show repeatedly in the next books - which I don't think will happen since in these few pages she already shows a bit of maturity as the events occur). The secondary show more characters could have had more attention, but for a short novella, they fit just fine. If the author would be so kind to tell us a bit more about them, like the master assassin, Sam and all the others, I'll be quite happy.

The writing is not exactly a masterpiece, but still very fluid, easy to understand and works just fine for this book style. Unlike some random indie books spread all around the globe, this book seems to have been carefully reviewed.

I'm glad my friend indicated this book. I'm definitely looking forward to read the rest of the series. show less

This is the first of four novellas all featuring Celaena that are leading up to (and take place before) The Throne of Glass. It’s a well done fantasy story that was engaging and easy to read. It gives the reader a good glimpse into Celaena’s past.

Celaena Sardothien and Sam have been sent to the pirate lord’s island seeking retribution for their master. The Pirate Lord killed a number of Celaena’s master’s assassins and she thinks that the retribution will be paid in gold. She is shocked and appalled to find out that her master is requesting slaves and is determined to foil the deal.

I did this a bit backward; I actually read Thorne of Glass already to review it and then came back to read these stories. The difference between show more Celaena in this story and Celaena post salt-mines is shocking. The Celaena in this story is arrogant, obnoxious, and not all that likable. Yes, she has guts and bravery and she is darn good at what she does, But the Celaena here is sooooo irritating.

It was wonderful to read about the “old” Celaena and one of her adventures as an assassin for her guild. This story was filled with intrigue, action, and some witty quips as well. Celaena is darn good at what she does and watching her in motion was fantastic.

The writing is well done and easy to read. The story engaging and the plot moves quickly. All in all an excellent introduction to Celaena. It was fun to go back and read this after reading Throne of Glass. If you think Celaena is a bit of an ass in this story, don’t give up on Throne of Glass because of that...she changes.

Overall definitely recommended. This is a good introduction to the world and to who Celaena used to be before she was punished in the salt mines. It also gives a lot of great background about how Celaena got in enough trouble to get sent to the salt mines in the first place. This is a solid and well written fantasy read. I definitely recommend this whole series to fantasy fans YA and older. show less

Is this what passes as teen lit these days?

The story was fun, the main character was predictable, and the ending was awful. She acted like a spoiled brat the whole time. I started reading the second one, and the beginning of the second novella makes the ending of this one even worse. I'm planning on continuing to read through these in order; I would like to get to the Throne of Glass eventually to see what all the talk is about.

It was fun to read, if a little frustrating at times.

Although I enjoyed the story and the characters, it just never had the spark that truly engaged me. Not sure if I'll try a further sage in the series or not.

4/5 stars
You can find all my reviews here

This morning I had only one goal in mind, read the five Throne of Glass novellas. Assassin and the Pirate Lord is the first novella and I was so excited to read it. It features two of my favorite things, meaning assassins and pirates. For as long as I can remember that was where my daydreams would linger, on one of the two options. I would picture myself as an assassin sneaking through shadows to reach my target, or as a pirate captain wielding a cutlass and commanding my motley crew.

So as I started this one my expectations were incredibly high. How can someone have my two fantasies in the same book and it not be good?! Well Sarah J. Maas wrote another great story here and introduced the show more character Sam Cortland. I’m excited to see their relationship progress as I read the novellas. I only had a single complaint--the typical way they start off hating each other and move towards romance. She’s did the exact same thing with both Chaol and Dorian. I guess that’s just her modus operandi. show less