Review: Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1) by Cassandra Clare

Title: Lady Midnight

Series: The Dark Artifices #1)

Other series in the Shadowhunter Chronicles: The Infernal Devices | The Mortal Instruments

Author: Cassandra Clare

Genre: YA, urban fantasy

Publication date: March 2016

Published by: Margaret K. McElderry

Source: Purchased hardcover

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Synopsis: 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.

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 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?

My rating: ★★★★★

Lady Midnight takes place 5 years after the end of The Mortal Instruments, and about 3 years after the end of Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy. In this series we follow the new characters we met in those last two books of TMI, the Blackthorn kids and Emma Carstairs, who is a distant relative of Jem! There are some sketchy murders going on in LA. that Emma thinks might be connected to the murder of her parents, who were killed all those years ago during Sebastian's attack on the institutes.

I loved these characters! Emma was an amazing fighter! I’m a sucker for action, so I really enjoyed the action sequences. Plus, the sass!

The faerie looked puzzled.
Emma sighed. “It’s so hard to be sassy to the Fair Folk. You people never get jokes.”

😂 Not to mention her banter with her parabatai Julian.

“Show-off,” Emma said, sheathing her sword.
“I’m your parabatai. I have to show off occasionally. Otherwise no one would understand why you keep me around.” ...
“I keep you around because I need an audience for my witty remarks,” she said...
“What witty remarks?”
“Oh, you are going to pay for that,” Emma muttered, following him. “I am incredibly witty.”
Julian chuckled.

And the sexual tension... oh my 😍

“Jules,” she whispered. “My Julian.”
“Always,” he whispered, returning to her mouth, “always,” and they fell into each other with the inevitability of a wave crashing against the beach.

I loved this! It's a shame parabatai can’t be together. Apparently, the parabatai bond makes them stronger together than they would be otherwise, but if that bond grows stronger (i.e. with romantic love), that power grows and grows and you'd think that'd be a good thing, but NOOO. It would drive them mad, turn them into monsters, and destroy everyone they love 😨 No one is told about this little side effect because there are power-hungry people who would take advantage. It’s just all so crazy and it’s so sad!

And then Julian taking care of his siblings... I loved that! He is so sweet and caring and I just found him to be very relatable, me being an older sister and all. But I also felt so bad for him because he’s only 17 and there so much on his plate, what with his parents dead, his absentminded uncle never around, and his older siblings being exiled... he’s TIRED. But even then, Jules tries his best and is a great parent to his siblings.

Talking about the older siblings, Mark comes back! He made a deal with the faeries and he comes back to his family! The poor guy though 😔 Those 5 year with the faeries was much longer for him and it really messed him up. We got some flashbacks of Mark in the Wild Hunt and it was so incredibly sad! Him trying to hold onto his sanity and family... 😭 And now that he’s back, he doesn't know where he belongs, but he tries his best to belong with his family. It was nice to see him getting reacquainted with his family... and modern technology 😆 That was hilarious!

“He bumped into a pay phone and said, ‘Excuse me, miss,’ on our way in,” said Julian.
“It’s polite to apologize,” said Mark with the same small smile.
“Not to inanimate objects.”

What?! 🤣

Another character I really liked was Cristina! She’s staying in the LA institute on her travel year from Mexico City. She is such a good friend to Emma—she’s very caring, especially when it comes to Downworlders. She hopes that one day she may be able to help with a better treaty between Downworlders and Shadowhunters, something better than the Cold Peace, which I totally agree with! It was very unfair what they did to Mark and Helen.

And we’ve got another Herondale!! You know I love me a Herondale 😏 And we actually first learned about this lost Herondale in one of the stories in Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, and we finally meet him here! Very exciting stuff! And speaking of Herondales, JACE! He shows up for a little bit, and we all know how much I love him. I’m always glad to see him. And we get a few appearances from a couple different TMI (and TID!) characters—I really loved that! Oh, and you remember Simon’s bandmates? Well they’re still going at it with the music and they finally settled on a band name: The Mortal Instruments! 😮 How fitting, is that? It really does make for an awesome band name 😆

I obviously loved this book—no one is surprised 😆 I loved this world and I loved meeting the new characters and the new threat. And it was so crazy how different the LA Institute was from the one in New York. They have an illegal TV powered by witchlight and they have internet! 🙀 Go Blackthrons! 😆 That ending with Jules and Emma, though, was brutal! 😫 It was heartbreaking, but I can’t wait to see what happens.

A Long Conversation

So at the end of Lady Midnight, we have a short story with some of the characters from TMI. They’re at Simon and Izzy’s engagement party, which OMG they’re getting married 😍 And the way Simon proposed was SO on brand, I loved it!

We got a lot of fun character interactions, including a sassy Alec, where we catch up with him and Magnus. But the main part of this story is a proposal...

Jace freaking proposes to Clary! 😭 First of all, YAY! Second of all, Clary, girl, you hesitated! Why?! This is freaking Jace! Come on! Get it together! Lol. Anyway, that was really exciting, but also... she didn’t really answer? So I don’t know what happens after this.

But yeah, this was a very fun short story about my favorite characters that took place just before they showed up in Lady Midnight.

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a link to your review or comment below! 😊