Sunday, March 20, 2016

Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare (The Dark Artifices book 1) (Shadowhunters book 10)

SPOILER POTENTIAL! This is the start of a new series in the Shadowhunter world but most of the characters in this book have appeared in the Mortal Instruments series. Both of the main characters in this book were introduced in City of Heavenly Fire. Events that transpired in the Tales of the Shadowhunter Academy also play a part since they occur before this book.

“It’s been five years since the events of City of Heavenly Fire that brought the Shadowhunters to the brink of oblivion. Emma Carstairs is no longer a child in mourning, but a young woman bent on discovering what killed her parents and avenging her losses.

Together with her parabatai Julian Blackthorn, Emma must learn to trust her head and her heart as she investigates a demonic plot that stretches across Los Angeles, from the Sunset Strip to the enchanted sea that pounds the beaches of Santa Monica. If only her heart didn’t lead her in treacherous directions…

Making things even more complicated, Julian’s brother Mark—who was captured by the faeries five years ago—has been returned as a bargaining chip. The faeries are desperate to find out who is murdering their kind—and they need the Shadowhunters’ help to do it. But time works differently in faerie, so Mark has barely aged and doesn’t recognize his family. Can he ever truly return to them? Will the faeries really allow it?”

Ms. Clare takes the reader back into the Shadowhunter world, but this time to Los Angeles. Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn are life long friends and parabatai. Emma is on track to become a great Shadowhunter, like Jace Herondale. Her parents’ unsolved murders and need for revenge are what has drove her the past five years. Over anything else, she will protect the Blackthorns as if they were her family, which after living the past five years with them at the LA Institute, they are. Julian became a man before he could finish being a child, tasked with the care of his four younger siblings. The older Blackthorn half-siblings are part fey and have been outcast from the Shadowhunter world after the Dark War and Cold Peace. He also lives with the nightmare of killing his own father in order to protect his brothers and sisters. Julian is truly alone, even with Emma by his side, as he keeps his own secrets. The two were virtually inseparable before a Blackthorn summer trip to a relative in England. Once back at the Institute, Julian has withdrawn from Emma and even stated that he wished that he didn’t have a parabatai. She is left wondering what has gone wrong with their relationship.

When a new series of murders hit LA that mirror her own parents’, the fey come to the institute to ask for help and bring Mark Blackthorn as a bargaining chip. With time passing differently in fey, Mark is no longer the older brother. With the introduction of a new cast of characters and the return of some old favorites, fans of the book series will be left hoping that everything will work out in the end but will have a bumpy road to get their.

The story will continue with the next book in the Dark Artifices series with Lord of Shadows.

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