Lord of Shadows by Cassandra Clare book review.

TITLE: Lord of Shadows

AUTHOR: Cassandra Clare

SERIES: The Dark Artifices #2

PUBLICATION DATE: May 23rd 2017 

PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster Childrens Books 

FORMAT: Paperback   PAGECOUNT: 699

Cover- Can we just say a silent thank you for the glow up of these covers. From The Mortal Instruments to this work of beauty!

Sunny Los Angeles can be a dark place indeed in Cassandra Clare’s Lord of Shadows, the sequel to the #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling Lady Midnight. Lord of Shadows is a Shadowhunters novel.

Emma Carstairs has finally avenged her parents. She thought she’d be at peace. But she is anything but calm. Torn between her desire for her parabatai Julian and her desire to protect him from the brutal consequences of parabatai relationships, she has begun dating his brother, Mark. But Mark has spent the past five years trapped in Faerie; can he ever truly be a Shadowhunter again?

And the faerie courts are not silent. The Unseelie King is tired of the Cold Peace, and will no longer concede to the Shadowhunters’ demands. Caught between the demands of faerie and the laws of the Clave, Emma, Julian, and Mark must find a way to come together to defend everything they hold dear—before it’s too late.

5 stars. 

Wow, what a way to start 2018!

I read Lord of Shadows, this 699 page beast of a book in four days. Four! At first I thought I was incredibly stupid for starting this the day before school started up but honestly it ended up really well, I’d come home, eat, walk the dogs, actually do my homework and then just read for the rest of the night. I even set myself a goal of 100 pages a night which I meted and even passed each night. My reading has been a little off recently but this book did a fab job in revamping my reading motivation.

My overall non spoiler review for this is very short, amazing writing as always with Cassandra Clare her writing style works so well with these Shadowhunter stories. This book was filled with non-stop action, witty sarcasm, hilarious one liners, scenes that pack a real punch to the feels.

I love all the characters in this book, minus Zara Dearborn. I herby declaring that Ty and Mark Blackthorn, Kit Herondale and Kieran are under my protection. I want them all to be happy.

I am absolutely terrified for Queen of Air and Darkness, I am so happy that the publication date was switched to December of 2018, it’s going to be enough of a struggle waiting another 12 months let alone till 2019.

OK now onto me talking forever about everything that went down in this book. I have a lot of feelings to discuss!

Love triangle? More like bloody love pentagon:

Emma and Julian are in love, a love which is forbidden so Emma dates Mark (Julians brother),  but Mark is in love with Kieran and may be in love with Cristina who was dating Diego until it turns out Diego’s engaged to Zara Dearborn, a horrible character, and Cristina may also have strong feelings towards Kieran.

Like I said this is way more then a love triangle.

As a result of all of this though I have acquired quite a few new ships to add to my ever growing collection. Ty & Kit,  Cristina & Mark & Kieran, Diana & Gwyn. Funny really how the main ship of this series is Julian and Emma and yet I don’t really ship them as much as I’m probably meant to. I know this is most likely a very unpopular opinion but I’m not as obsessed with them. I love Emma, she’s great and deadly and funny but Julian is probably my least favourite male shadowhunter protagonist. I feel bad about this cause he is actually a great guy, I mean he’s raised four kids and ran the institute by himself since he was 12.

Kit Herondale is a gift to this world. I mean is it even a Shadowhunter book if it doesn’t include a Herondale and Herondale sass? I found it hilarious how he literally has a crush on both Livvy and Ty at the start of the book but as soon as him and Ty started getting closer I immediately started shipping them. They’re so cute!

I loved the switch in location half way in from LA to London, mainly because of all the mentions of The Infernal Devices and also Jessamine Lovelace! I am curios however as to how the hell Bridget is still alive? How?

I also loved how domestic Magnus and Alec were in this with Max and Rafe. I always love them but I loved the domesticity of these two as parents and helping out with Tavvy too. I love the idea of Rafe and Tavvy growing up to be Parabati. Make this happen Cassandra!

And now onto how it seems the Grim Keeper was on standby during this whole thing:

I was thrilled that Jon Cartright and Marisol were mentioned as being together in cannon, I was thrilled, sure Jon was a total douchebag for most of The Tales From the Shadowhunter Academy but I still shipped them. And then …. then Jon ended up being decapitated. Can nobody be happy!!!!!

I saw a twitter post where somebody asked Cassandra Clare how many people die in this book and she responded with 4 that we know relatively well. And so I counted Jon in that and then of course Malcolm died again and then Arthur sacrificed himself and going into this I already knew about Livvy (we’ll talk about that injustice in just a second) so I was not expecting Robert Lightwood to go and be killed.

WHY!

I surprised myself with how bad I felt about his death at the start of reading these books I thought Robert Lightwood was a dick and yet there I was tearing up over his death. It was mentioned how much he’d changed since he’d become a grandfather and yet now he’ll never see them grow up. That’s two Max Lightwoods he wont see grow up.

And then of course Livvy. I knew about her dying before I went into this but it was still heartbreaken to see her and it was obvious Cassandra was making us like her and her bond with Ty and budding friendship with Kit. Heartbreaking! Cassandra Clare also seems to like causing heartbreak by saying how someone going to be ‘friends forever’ and then killing them violently. She did it with George Lovelace and she did it here too. Livia Blackthorn is joining George Lovelace in the Deserved Better category.

I have approximately 0 theories for book 3 except that everyone is going to be blaming themselves and grieving and I’m going to finish it feeling like my heart and soul has been ripped to shreds.

I’m hoping that the mysterious green skinned hooded guy who helped out at the Shadow Market with the crystal ends up being Ragnor Fell. After reading The Bane Chronicles I fell in love with that guy and I want more of that but him having faked his death seems highly unlikely.

If we’re going to take anything away from this book it’s that in a supernatural setting when I comes to politics when the reckless teenagers who constantly break the rules say something it’s most likely true.

And that is the end of my very long review of Lord of Shadows containing all my thoughts and feelings on what happened. I’m probably going to be hung up on this book for a short while which means going on tumblr and staying up until stupidly late. 

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