I LOVE this prequel series – it’s the greatest.  We are finally at the turning point of everything that’s come to be part of what makes Celaena who she is, and i think that we’ve all been waiting soo anxiously – the whole story about Sam and what made her turn so quickly on Arobynn.

The sam thing has thrown me the entire time we’ve been reading the Assassin’s Blade since it’s been rather clear that they don’t care for each other at all.  And since their relationship was such a big thing throughout the main series, I was just waiting for the moment when the curtain was lifted to see how they really came together.

This installment takes us to the point in time when we see Celaena is back from the Red Desert, she’s been betrayed by the one person she considered a friend, and she has a plan how to get away from Arobynn forever.  it’s still quite a bit from the point where she throws down the gauntlet.

So we’re back at the keep, and she’s kept the gold that she was gifted a secret so that she can buy her freedom.  Arobynn is acting a bit off when she comes back – although he continues to bestow lavish gifts on her in the hopes that she’s able to forgive him.  She then gives her a mission that pulls at her heart strings which personally i felt was a bit off, but she bought into it.

It’s this mission that brings her to the dark side of things since there’s so much more at stake than she knew.

Then there’s the bit of Sam.  It’s been 3 months since she had seen him, and well, a lot has transpired since then.  We see that he’s become quite friendly with Lysandra who we all know Celaena doesn’t have warm fuzzies to at this point in the story – and so we see jealousy and hatred come out at full force.  Clearly Sam doesn’t feel about Lysandra the way that Celaena thinks is at play, and we start to see that there’s more to the relationship between Celaena and Sam even if they won’t admit it.

So like i said, a lot comes into focus in this 4th prequel and i think that we’re finally connecting all those dots that brought us to the main series and into what we have seen Celaena transform into.  Knowing that there’s just one more, we know where it’s going to end and i’m a bit apprehensive about reading it because i don’t want to see how things turn…but i guess it’ll get me up to speed on the pre-story and then i can get back into book 5.

Have a great day all!