Synopsis from Goodreads:
Kell is one of the last Antari—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.
Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.
Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see. It’s a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.
After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.
Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they’ll first need to stay alive.
“I’m not going to die,” she said. “Not till I’ve seen it.”“Seen what?”
Her smile widened. “Everything.”
Magic and Mayhem, such a lovely combination.
I finally finished A Darker Shade of Magic after I-don’t -know-how-many-months, but I finished it. *confetti*
I normally don’t have any interest in reading a book with parallel worlds, but I liked this one. There’s Red, Black, Grey and White London. I am fascinated by the history of England in general, so I only wished that this book had added a little bit of made up history to each London. But the magic division in each London is okay too.
First of all, I’d like to say that I do not remember the first 120 something pages from the book because they were so fucking boring and they made me DNF the book like 3-4 times. Second of all, my rating is based on:
- the later pages,
- how much I love these characters (fucking a lot),
- the building before every scene,
- THE GLORIOUS WITTY AND SARCASTIC LINES IN THIS BOOK!!!
And that’s pretty much what I liked about it. As for the writing, like I said the first 120 were terrible, but as much as I hated the narration, I also loved the dialogue. I mean, the sarcasm in this book is fantastic, and even if you didn’t like the book at all, you can’t say otherwise. That’s how good it is.
So the book ended by killing the twins which is refreshing because I thought they’d be the “official villains” of the series. The stone plot was also wrapped and that means that another adventure awaits, which is something I never expected to happen in the FIRST book of a fantasy series.
As for the characters, I was quite surprised by the number of emotions I held for these characters. Like Baron (I think that’s the guy that Holland killed him in the bar), I didn’t even know that I’d be this affected by his death. Same goes for the little boy at the end, you know the one who showed up for one page only, literally!
And of course, our lovely main characters; Kell, Delilah, and Holland. I want to start with Delilah as she is my absolute favourite. She is everything that I love in any human being; Brave (if not reckless), loyal (despite what she says), SARCASTIC AF, Courageous, and just self-fucking-confident. I LOVE HER!! She was more interesting that Kell, obviously! It is expected from Kell to do the right thing, it is not – however- expected from Lila, but she did, and that’s another reason why I love her; she’s unpredictable. Anyway, when she was at the sanctuary and that priest (I forgot his name) commented on her eye (which I totally forgot about as I had forgotten the first 100+ pages already) and said she has a little bit of magic, it confirmed my thought that she is, in fact, an Antari. This is probably the most predictable twist in the book, and hopefully the whole series.
Kell is your dream YA guy, a sarcastic, strong, intelligent Antari with a coat of million colors; of course, you’re gonna love him, DUH! I mean, who wouldn’t want to have a coat that comes in different shades of colors?!! Okay, seriously, he is loved by many for that coat.
Holland. I know he is a main character, but he wasn’t in this book much, but I still managed to find him a place in my heart. He is like the tortured soul, the one bound to magic, can’t get out of it, have to live with it, with bad boy vibe kind of guy. But, surprisingly, he is not that angsty Antari everything in his life makes him out to be. He is sort of sadistic actually (blame the spell), with dark humor. Kudos for that, Schwab! Normally, it’d be easy for me to hate him, but I felt sorry for him so I didn’t. But after the twins’ death, wouldn’t he be free from the curse? I think so. So WHY THE HELL did Kell send him to that Black London?!! THAT MADE ME MAD! THIS BETTER GET FIXED IN THE NEXT BOOK.
I haven’t reviewed a book for so long, so I know this crappy but overall, I loved it enough to give it 3.5/4 stars even though I DNF-ed many times, and hated the first half of it, it was still that good.
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