Lord of Shadows

Hey guys,

It´s Wednesday so here I am. And I am very much looking forward to the review that I am bring today for you. As I said on my TBR I was planning to read Lord of Shadows by Cassandra Clare, even when getting the book was kind of difficult: at first I pre-order it on Amazon but there was some kind of problem with it so at the end I cancelled my order; then I saw the book on the Madrid Book Fair but as I have already ordered I did not pick up, when I cancelled my order I went back there and there were not copies left on the stand but they told me there have order some more and that they will have them the next week so I wait and when they called me I went for my copy of Lord of Shadows and as a reward for my patient wait for my most anticipated book of the year I bought another one but that´s a story for another day.

This will be a spoiler-free review regarding Lord of Shadows but you will for sure find some spoilers regarding the other books in the Shadowhutner Chronicles, meaning, the entirety of The Mortal Instruments, the entirety of The Infernal Devices, Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy and Lady Midnight. I have reviews up for most of these books so go the English Post page and check for those in case you want to know about them.

And now without further ado, let´s start talking about Lord of Shadows.

The story picks up a couple of weeks after the events of Lady Midnight and the Blackthorns are trying to deal with a plague of see demons that all of the sudden are coming into land very often. This has never happened and it´s unusual behaviour for the demons, but that´s not all that they need to deal with. Julian has to deal with the relationship between Emma and Mark, and all the problems that come with him being in love with his parabatai; and there is and uprating faction of fascist Shadowhunters called the Cohort that want to return to an era in which Downwolders are treat as rubbish and Shadowhunters are the supreme power.

As I have said before, this was my most anticipated book of the year and I was not disappointed. Actually, this book surpasses all my expectations. It´s, like I have been saying in all my reviews, a masterpiece. When I think Cassandra Clare, cannot come up with something better that the last book that I have read by her, she does, she brings something that I didn’t know I wanted but that I cannot live without. And when I think she cannot break my heart anymore she does it again.

I think is impressive to see how she has grown as an author. I have read most of the books she has publish, certainly all her alone books have been read by me, and I have seen her improve her writing, her story telling; she has grown as so have the characters and I. And I think that´s the reason why she is one of my all-time favourite authors.

Lord of Shadows is, so far, the best book that she has written. Not only the writing is addicting but she makes all the plot from all of her books intertwine in this one. And we get to see dear characters from other books in this one. The story is growing and it seem as every story is coming now to form a greater picture in which everything is related.

When I first, secondly, thirdly and all the times that I have read The Infernal Devices, I thought I could not like any character more than I like Will Herondale. And I have to admitted it (I am sorry Will) but I like Julian better. He is such a complex character and he is so well portrayed. But is not only him, is all the characters in this book.

The cast of characters in The Dark Artifices is the biggest of any of the series. To the main characters you have to add the whole variety of secondary characters, that are as well, incredibly well portrayed; but not just those, but also the “cameos” of characters from previous books. To manage to have such a variety and make every single character so different is amazing.

Also, is incredible how this plot goes. There are many plot twists that I did not see coming but that were just on point.

The writing style was as always addicting and absorbing. And I think is just the perfect one for this story.

And I know there have been so many rumours with the deaths that will happen in Lord of Shadows. Of course, I am not going to tell you who dies, when those deaths happen or how many people die. But I will tell you that some of them will just broke your heart.

And before I finish I really have to stop to applaud Cassandra Clare for the huge amout of diversity that she includes in her books. 

Overall, I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars as it could not have been in any other way. And I cannot wait for the final book in this trilogy to come, though I have to wait for two years. In the meantime, I will re-read all the books in The Shadowhunter Chronicles and be happy about the new trilogy, The Last Hours, that starts to be publish next year.

Have you read this book yet? What are your thoughts?

See you all next Wednesday.