Lord of Shadows by Cassandra Clare

Would you trade your soul mate for your soul?

A Shadowhunter's life is bound by duty. Constrained by honor. the word of a Shadowhunter is a solemn pledge, and no vow is more sacred than the vow that binds *parabatai*, warrior partners--sworn to fight together, die together, but to never fall in love.

Emma Carstairs has learned that the love she shares with her *parabatai*, Julia Blackthorn, isn't just forbidden--it could destroy them both. She knows she should run from Julian. But how can she when the Blackthorns are threatened by enemies on all sides?

Their only hope is the Black Volume of the Dead, a spell book of terrible power. Everyone wants it. Only the Blackthorns can find it. Spurred on by a dark bargain with the Seelie Queen, Emma; her best friend, Cristina; and Mark and Julian Blackthorn journey into the Courts of Faerie, where glittering revels hide bloody danger and no promise can be trusted. Meanwhile, rising tension between Shadowhunters and Downworlders has produced the Cohort, an extremist group of Shadowhunters dedicated to registering Downworlders and "unsuitable" Nephilim. They'll do anything in their power to expose Julian's secrets and take the Los Angeles Institute for their own.

When Downworlders turn against the Clave, a new threat arises in the form of the Lord of Shadows--the Unseelie King, who sends his greatest warriors to slaughter those with Blackthorn blood and seize the Black Volume. As dangers close in, Julian devises a risky scheme that depends on the cooperation of an unpredictable enemy. But success may come with a price he and Emma cannot even imagine, one that will bring with it a reckoning of blood that could have repercussions for everyone and everything they hold dear.

Join millions of readers around the world who have fallen under the spell of Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunters in the second volume of the Dark Artifices trilogy.

This description comes from the publisher. This is the second book of the Dark Artifices trilogy, the first of which is *Lady Midnight*; this takes place within the Shadowhunter Chronicles, the first of which is *City of Bones*.

I love pain and I love this characters so much

FINISHED: after DNFing this book 3 times.. I've finished. I've done it. One of the worst books I've ever read.

edit: DNFing for the 3rd time 48% through. So awful.

DNF at 46%
Will pick up again in the future.

Ive never rated a Cassandra Clare book under 4 stars before :(
What I read of the book was horrible.
Boring story, bland characters, just everything was so bad.

Emma and Julian are the worst couple, I mean they aren't a couple yet but its obvious they will be and I don't want to be here for it.

Lord of Shadows has been one of the most hotly anticipated Young Adult releases of 2017, since it was released in May it has been a very hot topic on book forums and BookTube and the reviews on this latest installment from Cassandra Clare have been rave with many hailing it her biggest success to date.

Now bearing in mind that at the release date of this book I literally had only read one of the Cassandra Clare books required leading up to this one, I have been marathoning all of them over the past few months leading up to the moment when I would delve into Lord of Shadows and have a chance to see if all the reviews indeed did the book justice or whether it was worthy of all the hype. I have been living through the eyes of all Clare's characters for the past few months and have come to love them and hold a special affection for many of them and so I really hoped this book would be as good as it hinted at being.

The first thing I was really pleased about in this book is that we are beginning to see the worlds of The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, and The Dark Artifices coming together. We have several of our favourite Shadowhunters and Downworlders featured in this book in various ways and this mixed with all the new characters we had introduced in Lady Midnight give us a real sense of being with friends. I am absolutely delighted to have Magnus and Alec back in this book as they have always been my favourite characters and they really made this book so much more engaging for me.

Secondly, as we did in Lady Midnight we get plenty of new additions to the story as well, my favourite being Kit Herrondale, the Lost Shadowhunter discovered at the end of Lady Midnight. His relationship with autistic Ty was one of the most beautiful friendships I've read about and I really liked him and his character arc in this book. I have a feeling there's lots more of his story we don't know about yet and I'm really keen to see where Clare takes this in the last installment of this series.

This is a hefty book at nearly 700 pages and so it took me a little bit to get through it but never did I find myself being frustrated with the story, it flowed really well and there was always lots going on to keep you engaged and hanging on for the next twist and turn. It is though a book that is clearly about setting us up for the showdown which is due to come in the next book in the series. The book has an almighty cliffhanger ending and a heartbreaking one at that. It was shocking and desperately sad and leaves us uncertain about what is to come. I can imagine with the excitement that people had for this books release we can only expect that to be increased for book 3 with the ending having so much tension and unanswered questions.

I didn't give this book 5 stars and that was only because if I had to compare it to Clockwork Princess or Clockwork Prince I'd still say those were my favourite of this series but I would put this as being of a much better calibre than many of The Mortal Instruments series, there is much more action packed within the pages and the stories seem to have become more encompasing of all the different facets of the Shadowhunter world which adds depth that some of the earlier books lack.

Shadowhunter universe is probably one of the best fantasy universes currently – only after Potterverse and the Middle-Earth though. Cassandra Clare has great imagination, an exec Ellen knack for combining myth, folklore and fantasy with current socio-political climate and ultimately giving us a world full of characters that we can root for. However, one of her great strengths is writing love triangles. Reading romance novels gets exhausting after a period of time and as we grow more cynical, it gets harder to empathize or even choose our favorites in a triangle. But Cassie writes such beautiful characters that it gets difficult to choose your favorites, but for a whole other reason – you want all the three to be happy, to find love and to be together. You don't want any of them to be separated. You fall in love with all of them and then can't extricate yourself from the entanglements of their love. My all time favorite trio is always going to be Tessa, Jem and Will from TID but this book gave me a similar feeling regards to Mark, Christina and Kieran. Their love has this undercurrent of pain, betrayal, friendship and so much more and I am very sure that I will grow to love them more.

This book is probably Cassie's best writing in terms of character development. We get to hear many different points of view and get to know them for who they really are. Julian is tormented in his love, Ty is both sure and unsure of everything , Kit feels out of place initially but grows into his love for Ty and the Blackthorn family, Emma is brave, Livvy is strong, Dru is lonely and Mark is conflicted. We see the story from everyone's eyes and sometimes are even able to sympathize with Malcolm- why he turned out to be the villain. There are also so many diverse personalities here and you can see that what unites them is so much more stronger than their differences. These characters make you care about them. They make you want to do something to make them happy, drive away their loneliness and fears, just be with them. It is because of these characters that everyone is still reading about the Shadowhunters even ten years after the first book.

Coming to the plot itself, much of the story is quite as expected. It's still interesting to venture into various cities including Fairieland and learn certain unexpected things about our favorite characters and their motivations. The best part about the plot is the way current issues are woven into the narrative but they seem so true to their world as well. And it proves, if you keep denigrating/controlling/punishing one group of people because of actions of a few and because you think your group is superior, the consequences will be bloody and devastating for everyone – even the innocent – especially the innocent. That's what happens at the end – innocent blood is shed and we will see the consequences of a bigoted and unjust world in the next book. But alas... very excruciating two year wait it's going to be for THE QUEEN OF AIR AND DARKNESS.