Lord of Shadows - Cassandra Clare

Tittle: Lord of Shadows

Series: Dark Artifices

Author:  Cassandra Clare

Genre: Fiction, YA, Romance, fantasy, paranormal, shadowhunters, demons, angels, vampires

Pages: 704

Publisher: Margaret K. Mc Elderly Books

Format: Digital (Kindle)

Time to read it:

Language: English

Rating: 5/5

“Lord of Shadows” is the second book in the “Dark Artifices” series by Cassandra Clare, a spin-off series of her famous “Mortal Instruments” series. Both these series along the “infernal devices” series conform “the Shadowhunters Chronicles” a series set in a fantasy world in which there is a race called shadowhunters, which has angel blood that keeps the mundane (human) world safe from the shadow world, demons, warlocks, vampires, werewolves and fairies.

Malcom is now dead but his body has not been founded yet, it remains in the deep ocean. The clave thinks the recently movement of sea demons moving into land, therefore Centurions are sent to the LA institute to start searching for the body of Malcom and the black book. The presence of these makes Julian’s lies about his uncle be in danger. On the other hand, Julian and Emma’s relationship has not been as it was, they not fight as parabatai anymore, ever since Emma started faking dating Mark in order to prevent the curse form parabatai love. However, the feelings they have for each other are not fading at all. 

“Lord of Shadows” was an amazing compelling book. Despite its length I was not able to put it down and wanted to read it from cover to cover. Cassandra Clare is an amazing author, she not only has created a world that many people love, but through that fantasy world she touches themes which are important nowadays. For starters, we can assimilate the “cold peace” to laws countries want to implement against immigrants, and how there are families that will get caught up in the middle of it, separated because some of the members are not from a certain race, like it happens to the Blackthorn. Moreover, couples that might fall in love to someone from other race will be seen in a bad way.

Another theme Cassandra Clare has always touched is sexuality. From the first books, she has included characters which are not heterosexual. The first one being Alec which discovers he is gay and how to deal with it. Then she has been taken steps forward making different kinds of sexuality “normal”, which I think is a very positive thing. Young people nowadays will read about Mark and fall in love with the character and they will not mind if he is bisexual and loved Kieran but at the same time he can be attracted to Cristina. Moreover, they will not mind when a character that has shown to be a really good person and has always protected the Blackthorns turns out to be transgender. I think these are things that we do not find enough of in young adult literature as open as it is in this series. Because in my opinion is not about making a gay couple the center of attention is about portraying characters with different sexualities as normal, as something you do not have the need to see as strange because it is normal.

Apart from that, the plot was interesting and nail-biting, as always with Cassandra Clare. As I said before, I could not put the book down despite being busy or tired I had to keep reading. I liked that the main characters, Emma and Julian, but I loved the other characters in the Blackthorn family, as well. I was not just interested about the two main characters interactions but all the characters of the book.

Talking about characters I loved that in this second book we were able to see a little more of the characters we loved from “the mortal instruments” series, and that they have kind of an important role into the story as well.

The only thing I did not like about the book was how abrupt and kind of unexpected the ending was. It was not much of a cliffhanger but a cut like in the middle of something.

To sum up, “Lord of shadows” was an incredible book. Cassandra Clare has done it again she even went over my expectations, specially making some social and political statements some politicians should take a look into. The only bad thing about this book is that now we have to wait for the next one. The “Shadowhunters” series did not start as one of my favorites but it is gaining positions book after book, therefore it is a much-recommended series to everyone.