Title: Lord of Shadows, Book #2 of The Dark Artifices
Book #3, Queen of Air and Darkness, coming out December 4! NEXT WEEK!
Author: Cassandra Clare
What it’s about (in 75 words or fewer): After the events of Lady Midnight, Emma begins fake-dating Julian's half-faerie brother Mark, in order to make Julian fall out-of-love with her so that they can escape the Parabatai curse. Meanwhile, the Unseelie King is tired of the cold peace and refuses to follow the Shadowhunters' demands, the Seelie Queen is trying to get the Black Volume for her own needs, and where is Annabel? Is she alive?
What I think (in 250 words or fewer): I've already talked about what I love about the Dark Artifices series, and even though I meant to only talk about Lady Midnight in that review, I actually mentioned quite a bit of Lord of Shadows also. Oops. So if you haven't read that review, you should read it first, and then we will (well, I, but you can virtually) geek out about what we want to see and don't want to see happen in Queen of Air and Darkness.
HERE BE SPOILERS.
- I want the characters to have some time to grieve. Lord of Shadows ended with an absolutely, devastatingly violent scene that left two characters dead. I always thought Robert Lightwood was a jerk, but I had been gaining some respect for him in this book. Livvy's death very much destroyed me, and if Julian and Ty especially are able to move on with the trite "Shadowhunters are so used to death that we don't grieve much," I will be disappointed. I still have issues with the way the Lightwoods hardly grieved the death of Max. Shadowhunters are human and with their Angel blood they should be more compassionate, not less.
- I do not want Alec to take over his father's job. Well, part of me wants Alec to burn the Clave to the ground, but most of me wants him to continue to work as a type of liaison between the Shadowhunters and the Downworld and not become some politician. He needs to be there with his babies and Magnus and not get involved in all of the yuckiness that is the Clave.
- I want the Circle [edit: I meant Cohort, obviously. I'll fix it] members to face some consequences for what happened in the last scene. Zara especially. Ugh. Realistically, I think they will get off scot free because they will claim their right to protest allowed them to be there, and that they were responsible for "exposing evil" or some such something, and I am already mad at Zara now. Dangit. They will not be held responsible. Somehow, it will be positive for them, I'm sure. GRRRRRRR.
- I do not want the Cohort to be easily defeated. You can't destroy a political ideology. You can't. CC is very good about proving that over and over in her books. Destroying the big bad guy does not magically (pun intended with this book!) make things better. There's always someone else. Yes, I want this group of Cohort members to be humiliated, intimidated, and generally thrown out of power, but should everything be all tied up and pretty with the good guys getting all the power at the end? Nope. Plus, I'm not exactly sure who the good guys with the power SHOULD be. I don't even want Alec to have the power because I don't want him to become a jaded jerk.
- I want Jace and Clary to live happily-ever-after AND off-the-page. I am not a huge fan of Clary and I don't like Jace at all (I know, I know), but I don't want Clary to die. I also don't want to deal with an angsty Jace if she does die (gosh, I sound terrible) OR have Jace be all, "Shadowhunters don't grieve." NO. Let them have their happiness someplace else. They've had their stories. They need to go away now.
- I don't want any of the warlocks to die! CC, why you do this to me? I don't think Magnus is going to die. Besides, I think books #2 and #3 of The Eldest Curses take place after this trilogy, so Magnus can't die. But a sick Magnus stresses me out too much. I don't want any of the warlocks to die, at least not Magnus, or Tessa, or Catarina.
- I want more Ty and Kit. I would cheerfully read a book just about Ty and Kit sitting together reading a book. I love them. Give me #Kitty, please.
- I do not want my Kitty babies to do anything stupid. Based on a snippet I swear I read off of this Tumblr but can't find now, I am terrified that Kit and Ty (my Kitty babies) are going to use the Black Volume to attempt to raise Livvy and NO. Didn't the situation with Annabel teach them anything?? Maybe Kit (or Dru, actually) has seen Pet Sematary and can warn Ty that it never ends well. Regardless, I have been wanting to cry for poor Ty for a couple of years now and I don't want to it get worse.
- I want to see Julian kick some total a**. He should be angry now. And maybe he'll be stripped of his marks or whatever because of the Parabatai curse? I want him ANGRY. I want to see his angry, evil side.
- I want Emma and Julian to have a happy ending. Yes, I am a sappy romantic at heart, okay? I'm sorry if y'all thought I was a bad-a**. I'm not. Maybe they'll have to quit Shadowhunting and Emma will sell used cars and Julian will teach art lessons to underprivileged children, but I want them to be happy together.
- I don't want Ash to be the Seelie queen's son with Valentine. Please no. Valentine is dead. Let's move on the next politician bad guy.
- I want more of Diana and Gwyn. After, of course, some serious awesome heroic fighting from Diana. Do not kill off the trans character, CC. I will be sad.
- Kieran and Cristina? Cristina and Mark? Mark and Kieran? Quite frankly, I don't care, but I am all about a hot faerie threesome idea. Is the YA world ready for polyamory? It was a plot point in Malinda Lo's Inheritance. It could happen here. But actually, I have a feeling Kieran will die.
- I want to know why the Mortal Sword . . . broke? How is that possible?
- How/why do the Wild Hunt fairies recognize Kit?
- I'd be okay with more Jem and Tessa. And the Shadow Market.
- Some more back story for Johnny Rook?
- More Dru and Jaime? And why is perfect Diego "engaged" to ZARA. That doesn't sound perfect.
- So who gets to re-kill Annabel? That has to happen, right?
- I just realized that a lot of the story was from Emma's point of view, but I don't have a lot of . . . interest in her, I guess? I don't want her to die, and I know she'll totally fight and win. I will, however, stab her with Cortana if she breaks Julian's heart.
Memorable quotes/passages from the book--From Goodreads:
- “Lex malla, lex nulla,” said Julian with a regretful wave of his hand. It was the Blackthorn family motto: A bad law is no law.
“I wonder what other family mottoes are,” Emma mused. “Do you know any?”
“The Lightwood family motto is ‘We mean well.’ ”
“Very funny.”
Julian looked over at her. “No, really, it actually is.”
“Seriously? So what’s the Herondale family motto? ‘Chiseled but angsty’?”
- “I need to be whole again. Even if it doesn’t last.”
“It can’t last,” she said, staring at him, because how could it, when they could never keep what they had? “It’ll break our hearts.”
He caught her by the wrist, brought her hand to his bare chest. Splayed her fingers over his heart. It beat against her palm, like a fist punching its way through his sternum. “Break my heart,” he said. “Break it in pieces. I give you permission.”
- “And if we don't have Energy runes, we'll have to get our energy the old-fashioned way."
Mark looked puzzled. "Drugs?"
"Chocolate," Emma said. "I brought chocolate. Mark, where do you even come up with these things?"
Mark smiled crookedly, shrugging one shoulder. "Faerie humor?"
- “Alec: Catarina made up the Bermuda Triangle?
Magnus: Don't be ridiculous, Alexander. That was Ragnor.”
Other reviews: Visit TMI Source and Shadowhunters.com.
This book is available in the Greensboro Public Library.
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