Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare ~ Review & Teaser (@cassieclare)

I'd forgotten how much I enjoy this magical world so I was so excited to get into this series! It was exciting to see old and new characters as they tried to unravel the mystery!

Title: Lady Midnight

Author: Cassandra Clare

Series: The Dark Artifices #1

Genre: YA Fantasy

Published: March 8th 2016

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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?

Glitz, glamours, and Shadowhunters abound in this heartrending opening to Cassandra Clare’s Dark Artifices series.

It has been a long time since I have read anything by Cassandra Clare, and I have purchased each book in this series as they were released. However, I just hoarded them until I had the chance to read them. I finally picked up Lady Midnight, and was pulled into the Shadow Hunter world once again, meeting characters that I had glimpses of in the original series, The Mortal Instruments.

This series starts with Emma trying to find out how her parents were murdered. She follows leads and puts herself in danger, and learns that she has a lot of people that will support her. She discovers how important her connection is with her paborati, Julian, and I could see that their relationship was developing into something more than a magical partner relationship, which was forbidden.

Julian had struggled raising his siblings since his older brother and sister were taken away. He played the safe, obedient parental role but soon discovered that he needed to step up a little more to help and to save those he loved. I liked that his brother came back to put pressure on him, however it wasn't easy for Mark to come back to his family.

I thoroughly enjoyed this read, and all the twists and turns that were thrown at Emma and the Blackthorn family. I loved seeing glimpses of characters from The Infernal Devices as well as the first series, as they came in to help when needed.

Cassandra Clare has an incredible way of building a world that you want to get lost in, and I couldn't help but get pulled into this magical world and the action that unfolded. The ending was fantastic and I cannot wait to see what happens next.

This was a bit of an exciting moment and shows the deep relationship that Jules and Emma have.

She took her witchlight out of her pocket and lit it, filling the car with bright light. Jules’s shirt was soaked with blood, and worse, the healing runes she’d drawn had vanished from his skin. They weren’t working.
“Jules,” she said. “I have to call the Silent Brothers. They can help you. I have to.”
His eyes screwed shut with pain. “You can’t,” he said. “You know we can’t call the Silent Brothers. They report directly to the Clave.”
“So we’ll lie to them. Say it was a routine demon patrol. I’m calling,” she said, and reached for her phone.
“No!” Julian said, forcefully enough to stop her. “Silent Brothers know when you’re lying! They have the Mortal Sword, Emma. They’ll find out about the investigation. About Mark—”
“You’re not going to bleed to death in a car for Mark!”
“No,” he said, looking at her. His eyes were eerily blue-green, the only deep color in the witch-lit interior of the car. “You’re going to fix me.”

Paperback Page 267

Cassandra Clare was born to American parents in Teheran, Iran and spent much of her childhood travelling the world with her family, including one trek through the Himalayas as a toddler where she spent a month living in her father’s backpack. She lived in France, England and Switzerland before she was ten years old.

Since her family moved around so much she found familiarity in books and went everywhere with a book under her arm. She spent her high school years in Los Angeles where she used to write stories to amuse her classmates, including an epic novel called “The Beautiful Cassandra” based on a Jane Austen short story of the same name (and which later inspired her current pen name).

After college, Cassie lived in Los Angeles and New York where she worked at various entertainment magazines and even some rather suspect tabloids where she reported on Brad and Angelina’s world travels and Britney Spears’ wardrobe malfunctions. She started working on her YA novel, City of Bones, in 2004, inspired by the urban landscape of Manhattan, her favourite city. She turned to writing fantasy fiction full time in 2006 and hopes never to have to write about Paris Hilton again.

Cassie’s first professional writing sale was a short story called “The Girl’s Guide to Defeating the Dark Lord” in a Baen anthology of humor fantasy. Cassie hates working at home alone because she always gets distracted by reality TV shows and the antics of her two cats, so she usually sets out to write in local coffee shops and restaurants. She likes to work in the company of her friends, who see that she sticks to her deadlines.

City of Bones was her first novel.

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