Hey, all!
The time has come! A whole series of novellas based on my one and only favourite character that I will love and cherish until the end of my reading days: James Carstairs. A set of short stories, following Jem both as a silent brother and as a human, though time, looking for the Lost Herondale.
I laughed, and cried, and wanted to hug the characters. I had to stop reading because of surprise, and yet couldn't put it down. My only wish is that some of the stories may have been longer.
This review will contain spoilers of The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, and The Dark Artifices!
"The Shadow Market is a meeting point for faeries, werewolves, warlocks and vampires. There the Downworlders buy and sell magical objects, make dark bargains, and whisper secrets they do not want the Nephilim to know. Through two centuries, however, there has been a frequent visitor to the Shadow Market from the City of Bones, the very heart of the Shadowhunters. As a Silent Brother, Brother Zachariah is sworn keeper of the laws and lore of the Nephilim. But once he was a Shadowhunter called Jem Carstairs, and his love, then and always, is the warlock Tessa Gray.
Follow Brother Zachariah and see, against the backdrop of the Shadow Market’s dark dealings and festive celebrations, Anna Lightwood’s first romance, Matthew Fairchild’s great sin and Tessa Gray plunged into a world war. Valentine Morgenstern buys a soul at the Market and a young Jace Wayland’s soul finds safe harbor. In the Market is hidden a lost heir and a beloved ghost, and no one can save you once you have traded away your heart. Not even Brother Zachariah..."
This review won't be very thorough - each author that contributed brought their own voice to the story, different writing styles, and different ways of expressing crushing feelings.
Now, anyone who has read my blog before, be it a tag or anything Shadowhunter-related, knows that I am a sucker for Jem Carstairs. His heart, his ways and his beliefs are absolutely beautiful, and I could not wait for this book to come out. Luckily this book showed up in my local bookstore almost two weeks before its initial release, so I had an earlier opportunity to let a bunch of strangers use words to break my heart.
Ah, isn't the reader's life sadistic?
My most feel-y parts
I have said before, and will say again, that the concept of Parabatai is my absolute favorite fictional concept ever. Jem being with and remembering Will always got to me, because it was done so smoothly. They could never properly be friends as they were again, so there was always a tinge of melancholy when they were together.
Worse, however, was some Jem and Tessa moments. Cassandra Clare, how dare you make me feel such things? This book was excellent in making you understand just how difficult Jem's life as a silent brother was. How he couldn't feel, how his emotions and even memories were fading slowly. Tessa taking care of Jem who almost died during World War One, Jem at Tessa's bedside after she gets stabbed, realizing that this is what he made she and Will go through while he was sick...
Their daughter, Mina...
I had so many emotions reading these parts it was difficult to keep up!
The passages relating to the things that Jem was missing or had lost were particularily difficult to read, because everything lead to a sea of emotions.
Integration
I actually really liked how Jem's story fit in with all the different timelines, and character's lives. I particularly liked his interaction with Alec in Argentina. However, the last novella kept me curious - I do realise that I have not read Queen of Air and Darkness so I may be missing a lot of plot to fully understand what happened in the last novella, but even then, I feel like Jem's story was just background, compared to the main plot.
I loved getting to know how Alec and Magnus adopted Rafael, how some characters that have only been mentioned went through the struggles of being unlike the others, I liked seeing Ty and Livvy grow up, and Jace's first meeting with the Lightwoods. There is SO much that happened, that I was very happy to read!
One day, when everything is published, I want to read all of the Shadowhunter set, in exact order.
General impressions
This novella was full of memory, hope, and peace. Sometimes repetitive (yet that was quickly forgiven), the novella set was exactly what I needed nowadays.
My favourites were...
- A Deeper Love
- Learn About Loss
- Through Blood, Through Fire
- The Land I Lost
This made my fangirl heart happy, I'm giving it 4/5 stars <3
Stay bookish!
Hey, all!
I just finished reading Shadow Frost, by Coco Ma! This was sent to me by Blackstone Publishing via Netgalley as an eARC. This will be published in October 2019. The fact that this is an arc does not alter my opinions.
Before I even start reviewing this, take 2 minutes and pre-order this. It is worth it, I promise.
P.S., this review is spoiler-free!
"When Asterin Faelenhart, Princess of Axaria and heir to the throne, discovers that she may hold the key to defeating the mysterious demon terrorizing her kingdom, she vows not to rest until the beast is slain. With the help of her friends and the powers she wields—though has yet to fully understand—Asterin sets out to complete a single task. The task that countless, trained soldiers have failed.
To kill it.
But as they hunt for the demon, they unearth a plot to assassinate the Princess herself instead. Asterin and her friends begin to wonder how much of their lives have been lies, especially when they realize that the center of the web of deceit might very well be themselves. With no one else to turn to, they are forced to decide just how much they are willing to sacrifice to protect the only world they have ever known.
That is… if the demon doesn’t get to them first."
The first thing you should know about this book, is that it's written by Coco when she was 15, and is being published just a year after she graduated high school. I've spoken with her and she is SUCH a ball of human sunshine! I am honoured to be able to share this book! I'll also be getting a physical ARC, so I'll be all over sharing this!
Shadow Frost was such a smooth read. The writing made sense for the story, and the characters felt real. There was confusion and name-calling and stubbornness and laziness and none of them felt like a holier-than-thou Mary Sue. Even Asterin just felt like a normal teenager who just so happened to be able to control various elements. It was really refreshing to read characters like this - it was somewhat akin to Percy Jackson. Characters were relatable, which made it all the more fun!
One of my favourite characters was Harry. I won't spoil a thing aside from the fact that he's a cinnamon roll and I wanna go in the book and hug him.
Coco also did a good job depicting all kinds of relationships! There was a great cousin dynamic, a series of strong friendships, a (sorta insta-lovey but I shipped it right away so I can't judge) romance, and no love triangles! I thought there would be for a bit, but it ended up being something I couldn't anticipate.
I loved the magic in this book - it had relatively clear rules, straightforward abilities and creative detours. Nobody overused their magic - it was simply a part of who these characters were, and I was all in for that!
Shadow Frost has a plot that keeps moving, almost dancing with the reader. When you believe it to go one way, it takes you another, that only feels more clever. It's also super well-organised: a detail I liked was that, at times, shifting POVs described one thing, from two points of view. It gave a 3D feel to the plot, if that makes sense!
And that ending! Shadow Frost punched me in the feels at the end - so many bombs were dropped! I always thought I knew what was happening, and it would shift! Aaa so good!
There were a few things I would just tweak - Quinlan's overuse of the word 'brat' is one I can think of now. He's not the best insulter, but it also does add to his charm.
That's it for now! I could keep talking about this for a long time - I can't wait to meet other people who have read the book!
I'm giving it 4.5/5 stars!
Stay Bookish!
