Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare
Lady Midnight is the first book in The Dark Artifices series, a spinoff of The Mortal Instruments featuring Emma Carstairs and the Blackthorn family, talented albeit very, very young shadowhunters.
A brief intro to the world of the Shadowhunters: Werewolves, vampires, faeries and warlocks live amongst the mortals in this universe. However, they’re covered by layers of “glamour”, causing them to appear normal and blend in with the humans. Only Shadowhunters (aka the Nephilim) and ones blessed by the “Sight” can see past the glamour to their true selves. Long ago, the Angel Raziel put the Nephilim on earth to protect the human race against supernatural and demonic forces and so that’s what they do and their lifelong duty. Almost every single shadowhunter is trained in combat, the demon tongues and runes since they’re old enough to walk, making them more than capable of dealing with the nefarious creatures.
In Lady Midnight, the story still takes place in the Shadowhunter realm but the focus is on entirely new characters. You’ll still get glimpses of old ones but the bulk of the story revolves around the adventure and mysteries Emma and the Blackthorns discover and go on.
All in all, it was a pretty good book with a very strong plot but I just think it would’ve been good to be introduced to a new setting instead of always staying in the Nephilim world. Other than that though, the character relationships and backstories are, as always, rock-hard solid, because this is Cassandra Clare we’re talking about… 🙂 Final rating would be an 8.5/10 because it’s an amazing story but getting a bit repetitive for me.
