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 … 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.
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I loved this book. It was really good it made me cry a little bit. It made me laugh and it made me angry. It was amazing.
The ending is very sad
Possibly Cassandra Clare’s best story yet, and that is really saying something!
I really enjoyed this one!
This was everything I’ve come to love from a Clare novel and I loved going back to the Shadowhunter Universe. My only regret is that it took me so long to read this one. I’ve got some catching up to do on the books of Ms. Clare!
Lady Midnight is after the events of the Mortal Instruments series and follows a different set of Shadowhunters from a different institute. We still get to see some of our favorites though, like Clary and Jace, Magnus, and mention of several others and what they are doing now. We even get to see some people from The Infernal Devices.
The biggest thing in the story that got to me was the laws of the Clave and how the Shadowhunters don’t always agree with or understand the laws. I think it will definitely open some minds to our own government and how they don’t always know best.
I can’t wait to read the rest of the series and the other spin off series that I’ve missed.
So being that is kind of a sequel to The Mortal Instruments and it is set 5 years later and follows Emma, but we are not in New York, this time, we are over in L.A. Being that we know this world there wasn’t much world building other than getting us used to being in L.A and not New York. It was nice to be in that familiar world again and it’s like we never had a break in between TMI and TDA. As it was a carry on from the TMI world one thing that surprised me was the aftermath of the Dark War known as stupid Sebastian trying to end the world and blah anyway all the faerie (no idea if that is spelt right) they have been punished for siding with Sebastian in the dark war and it’s shocked me how the Shadowhunter/clave have turned their back on a whole race for the actions of a few. So now we have The Cold Peace which makes me sad a little especially because Mark and Helen Julian’s older siblings are part Fae.
The characters I loved I fell in love with Emma and Christina and just all of them except you know the baddy which I can’t tell you because that would be one big ass spoiler and nobody would forgive me. But all Julian’s siblings they were so adorable and I could picture each and every one of them. All the characters are brilliant, the one I wasn’t keen on was Arthur, erm the uncle I really didn’t like him and if you have read it you will know why but if you want to read it you will figure out why he wasn’t very liked. We get to see our old characters too! Tessa, Jem, Jace, Magnus (he bae) Alec, Clary, we get to see them all again and Isabelle and Simon are also mentioned. It makes me incredibly happy that we get to see them together.
Also, what makes me even happier. MAGNUS AND ALEC STILL TOGETHER. I ship them are hard! Malec is the ultimate ship. Like I’m still waiting for a full book of them being romantic together like Cassandra Clare make this happen! PLEASE. So that should happen. Magnus and Alec are just gah anyway that’s not what this book is about.
SPOILER SECTION IS ABOUT TO START. DO NOT READ ON. (I rated this 5/5 stars on Goodreads)
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
DON’T READ ON IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THIS.
DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THIS.
I DO NOT WANT TO SPOIL YOU.
THIS SHOULD BE ENOUGH WARNING.
ALERT.
SPOILER
ALERT.
Right, that’s enough warning for spoilers, so if you read on you have nobody but yourself to blame. I mean unless you have read it then you safe mate. Read on, but for those who haven’t. Shame on you.
Emma and Julian their relationship from when he came back to the institute I could tell it wasn’t just the parabatai bond it was something else like we had already seen how Alec and Jace and Jem and Will’s parabatai bond had worked so we could tell this one was a little different. It felt different as a reader, it’s like there was something unspoken between them. As we read on we figured out that they love each other although both struggle with the fact that they love each other and are each others parabatai as it is against the rules to love each other. Although nobody has ever said why it’s dangerous for them to love until Jem tells her at the end of the book too much power and then she makes that decision to not be with Julian. That moment was heartbreaking it was worse Clary and Jace being told they were fake siblings, it was worse than that moment. I felt both of their pain that was like such powerful writing. Cassandra Clare always manages to get me in the heart. But the whole way through I was rooting for them to be together but then deep down I knew that the book wouldn’t end with that. So it really made me sad that it wouldn’t. I’m hoping obviously that within the next 2 books they will get together. If not, Cassie Clare I’m coming for you.
Mark. He was such an interesting character, being that he was taken away by the Faeries as a sort of punishment, he was returned to them as a bargaining chip and seeing his relationships develop with his younger siblings it was so interesting, the fact he didn’t realise time had gone past and the Julian basically had to become a father at 12 and learn to run the institute too, watching them together it was like Mark was younger than him. It was also understanding as he hadn’t been in that world for 5 years and didn’t know what to do. But seeing it all try to work they all didn’t know what to do and it was trial and error thing and it worked well and obviously he decides to stay woo. Kieran his boyfriend or whatever they were. Cassandra Clare writes gay romance brilliantly, seeing them together it felt like Magnus and Alec all over again but obviously Kieran and Mark, from what we saw of them together and what Mark told us it was such a nice relationship between them.
Kieran then decides to be a jealous asshole but I swear in one of the other books we were told they get very jealous, and for punishment Mark has to be whipped which is when Kieran realises what he has done, and says no. Julian agrees to take the whips but then he is in pain as is Emma because of the parabatai bond she feels it too. So then she finally takes the whips for them both, and because of this Mark is furious with Kieran and they break it off and he tries to kill him. It was horrible to see but right then I think Mark knows that his loyalties lie with his family, although it’s sad that it had to happen for that to happen. I’m glad it was.
Julian and his siblings, he was very protective of them and it was nice for him to try and keep them safe, and, of course, they didn’t always want to listen with Ty holding a knife to Kit’s throat (who turns out to be a shadowhunter! A HERONDALE in fact! That was a shock I was like no, that can’t be true. I wondered why we started off with them but it made sense by the end of the book.) So although he wanted so hard to protect the children he was just fighting a losing battle knowing that it is what they were meant to do they wanted to fight. Julian finally lets them all his when one of them is taken by MALCOLM. THE EVIL GUY. I’ll explain that soon. Erm so they all fought together and he was surprised by some of his siblings abilities knowing that he just wanted to protect them. Dru, Livvy and Ty prove themselves and what they can do to Julian when Tavvy is kidnapped by Malcolm (I think I got that the right way round. Names so similar man.)
Malcolm is the high warlock of Los Angelos, a very bad one. At first, we think oh he’s helping them. He’s going to help them and help Emma figure out who killed his parents. Yeah, we all think that. NO! THAT’S A LIE. He killed Emma’s parents! The cunt. He kidnapped Tavvy to bring back his lost love also known as Annabel but she is also called Lady Midnight, hence the title of this book. Blood must have blood to be able to raise her and bring her back to life. So he was dumb and decided to kidnap a child. You know he could have just taken crazy old Arthur instead of the child. He dies. Emma kills him and it was so beautiful him being dead she finally got her revenge and that was beautiful.
Clary and Jace are mentioned a lot in this book and are basically very famous for their part in the Dark War and Julian and Emma look up to them and are friends with them. In the City of Heavenly fire, we see Clary is the only one who goes running after Emma once she finds out her parents died and is one of the few people who believed that they weren’t killed by Sebastian. So it’s nice to see them appear and we get Jace talking to them about how the parabatai bond is the best thing ever and you should love who they were with it made me laugh as he mentioned how long it took for Alec to accept Clary.
I would and could talk all day about this but then what do you have left to read?! So go read and if you have read it let me know and we can gush together! Believe me I would go on talking about all my favourite bits and everything but we would be here all day. I have only gone through some of my favourite bits, I know there is way more than happens in the story, but I shall leave you with what I like!
Wow, I feel like I just ran a freaking marathon. My emotions! Oh god. This book was so good, but SO MUCH HAPPENS.
Let’s start with my absolute FAVORITE thing about this, which were the characters. My love of all the blackthorns (and Carstairs and Rosales too) runs so deep that I’m actually a bit concerned about myself. These are fake people that don’t actually exist and I am SO FREAKING INVESTED. I love them all!
And let’s hear it for diversity. I looooooooved all the rep in this!! So many diverse characters! I loved that Ty was never labeled with a “problem” and he just was who he was. YES! I loved my that my girl Dru had some curves. FINALLY. I loved that Mark was bi. I loved it all! This felt like such a normal family (you know, minus all the faeries and demon killing) and I want to hug Cassandra Clare for it.
↬ FINAL WORD
I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVED this book and I can’t wait to keep reading the series!! I must find out what happens to my children!
This is an amazing book, a great addition to the Shadowhunters cronicles. It is amazingly long and makes you never want to put it down. You will want to read the other two in the series as soon as you can, the story really sucks to in.