Review: Lord of Shadows by Cassandra Clare

I was absolutely blown away by how much I enjoyed reading Lord of Shadows, the second novel in the Dark Artifices series, which is set in the world of the Shadowhunters. Set in Los Angeles, the novel features a large cast of adolescent Shadowhunters--humans with angel blood whose purpose is to keep the rest of humanity safe from dangerous paranormal activity. Unfortunately, Shadowhunting comes with a lot of rules, there is plenty of infighting in their governing body, the Clave, and their relationship with other paranormal folk is rather delicate. As the group comes together (and occasionally apart,) to find the only copy of The Black Volume of the Dead, a spell book that yields enormous power (especially if it gets in the wrong hands,) they find themselves battling against a number of others, including a group of Shadowhunters who want to take the Los Angeles Institute for their own--and who will stop at nothing to get it. 

Author Cassandra Clare has a way of gripping readers with page turning plot twists, and emotionally charged situations featuring characters who are just on the cusp of adulthood. It's been more than ten years since I read her first novel, City of Bones, but I'm thinking that I may have to go back and re-read that one, along with her other Shadowhunters novels. (So far, there are three series published featuring the Shadowhunters, The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices and The Dark Artifices.)

Big shout out and thank you to Simon and Schuster Australia for my copy of Lord of Shadows.

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