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May 06, 2020librarianjessica rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Ouch :') When Cordelia Carstairs moves to London, she has one goal in mind: make connections in order to get her father released from imprisonment in Idris for a crime she's sure he didn't commit. She is friends with James Carstairs and his band of Merry Thieves - Matthew, Christopher, and Thomas - and James' sister, Lucie, is her soon-to-be parabatai. But when a series of demon attacks occur in broad daylight, the Shadowhunters realize that the forces at play are huger than they could have anticipated, and Cordelia's unrequited love for James will be the least of her worries. Cassie has such a talent for taking my heart out of my chest, stomping on it, and then leaving me wanting more and thanking her for it. Her writing has peaked, I think; this book, the Dark Artifices series, and any of her more recent releases are just well-written and complexly plotted and so hard to put down. As always with the world of the Shadowhunters, the characters in this one are so strong. It's a bigger cast than some of CC's other series, and with all the connections between and amongst the characters of both this series and literally every single other one, I did have some trouble sometimes remembering who was a Lightwood and exactly which Lightwood was whose parent and who was related to whom, but that didn't affect my enjoyment of the story at all. Cordelia is absolutely wonderful as an MC - she's fierce but so kind and empathetic and sensitive, and her desire to be a hero at the expense of everything absolutely broke me. James and the Merry Thieves often had me laughing out loud, and revisiting Tessa and Will and Jem just makes my heart warm every single time. I could go on for hours about the way that all of these characters are so round, with so many qualities that make them distinct and lovable and heartbreaking in the Shadowhunter world that has quickly become very populated with so many other characters. The one thing that this one didn't have for me was a twist that had be gasping and wondering at where it came from. The plot surrounding the demon attacks drives the whole book, with all the other relationships and their complexities developing along the way, and though there was pretty consistent action and lots of twists, nothing really left me all that shocked. Everything about Grace makes me want to murder someone - hopefully that's not a spoiler - but nothing there was all that surprising to me. I enjoyed the entire thing, absolutely; this is still a 5 star read for me. I just wonder how CC will surprise us in the next instalments, or if she plans on turning everything on its head. I absolutely adore the world of the Shadowhunters and I'm so goddamn happy that we have another series to look forward to here. This was such a lovely escape from everything happening in the world right now, and I can't wait to both reread it and find out what comes next for Cordelia and James and Lucie and everyone else.