Sunday 29 May 2016

Book Review - Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare

Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices, #1)Lady Midnight

(The Dark Artifices #1)

Author: Cassandra Clare

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal. 

Published: March 8 2016

Pages: 720 pages (Paperback) (Simon & Schuster)

Read: March 8 2016 - May 1 2016

Rating: 5 Stars


The Shadowhunters of Los Angeles star in the first novel in Cassandra Clare’s newest series, The Dark Artifices, a sequel to the internationally bestselling Mortal Instruments series. Lady Midnight is a Shadowhunters novel.

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?


Book 11/65 - 2016 Goodreads Reading Challenge

This book is currently the only book that I have pre-ordered in 2016. I pre-ordered this book with a ticket to see Cassandra Clare at a signing event. Unfortunately, due to personal circumstances I wasn't able to attend this signing but I will get to meet Cassie again, I'm sure. With all the books that she is bringing out she will definitely be out touring again!

I know looking above it does appear to seem that it took me a whole two months to read this book but this is not due to a fault with the book at all. Truth is this book arrived on my doorstep the day of its release which was the day after I just started working in a new job and circumstances as they were it took me a long time to schedule myself back to normality and back to where I actually had time for my favourite hobby.

But boy, boy, boy, this book was fantastic. It was fabulous and I just fell in love with it. I loved the fact that this was the first time we were seeing the story of the Shadowhunter realm through a born and bred Shadowhunter. Emma Carstairs grew up as a Shadowhunter and knew all about the world of Downworld and so on from a very young age, unlike our previous two protaganists, Clary, who found out she was a Shadowhunter or Tessa, who fell into the hands of Shadowhunters and was actually a Downworlder. So I found this to be extremely refreshing to see from an already established Shadowhunter, not someone who was just discovering a world for the first time.

I will admit that I was a bit iffy starting out with these characters. There were so many in the Blackthorn family that for some reason at the beginning I found it hard to establish who was who and to separate out all their different personalities, but as the story went on each and every one of these characters grew on me and I literally have added them to the pile of characters that I care so much about.

I was also so scared when I began reading this book. Cassandra Clare is just such a favourite author of mine and I love her previous series and I was just thinking in the back of my mind while reading 'what if I don't like this? what will I do?' But alas, obviously, that was not the case, especially towards the end of this book.

I found that the beginning of this book did go a bit slow, but I love slow books as much as I love action packed, fast ones, so this was not a serious problem for me. I found that we needed that slow beginning to build relationships, to familiarize with new characters and to learn all about these characters, their situations and what was going to unfold in front of them. I actually loved the amount of diversity seen in each and every one of the characters in Lady Midnight and I applaud Cassandra Clare for adding such diversity to her books. But anyway, going back to the plot wise, once the action started, boy did it start. There were so many plot twists and turns and mysteries solved and questions left unanswered and I was a big mess by the end of this book and just needed the next one as soon as I read that last word!

Where is the second book? I honestly don't think I can wait that long for the next book.


Let me know down below what you thought of Lady Midnight? Did it live up to your expectations? Are you craving for the next book like I am? Let me know all of your thoughts down below!

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