Lady Midnight (Dark Artifices, #1)

by Cassandra Clare

The Shadowhunters of Los Angeles star in Lady Midnight, 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 Firethat 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?

Glitz, glamours, and Shadowhunters abound in this heartrending opening to Cassandra Clare's Dark Artifices series.

• ISBN13: 9780606405355
• Publish Date: 3 October 2017 (first published 8 March 2016)
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Turtleback Books
• Edition: Bound for Schools & Libraries ed.
• Format: Hardcover (Library Binding)
• Pages: 720
• Language: English

Reviews

We are more than single actions we undertake, whether they be good or evil. (Kieran)

Lady Midnight wins the award for being the first book in a new series in the Shadowhunter Chronicles that I actually like. I was quite worried that the world would seem unoriginal and redundant (an issue that I had with Clockwork Angel) but I really enjoyed the vibe in Lady Midnight. I don't know if it's the Los Angeles setting or the faerie politics, but Clare's managed to put a refreshing spin on an old world that I know too much about.

The characters in Lady Midnight are diverse and, for the most part, well-developed. Here are my thoughts about some of the main characters:

★ Emma Carstairs. For the first half of the book I felt like Emma was Jace 2.0. At about the 400 page mark, I started liking her and I was like, "I feel you, girl." and then at the end, I was like, "WHY EMMA?!?!" I get that Emma's recklessness is part of her personality and she does some silly things because of it, but I couldn't connect with her.

★ Julian Blackthorn. He's the father in the Blackthorn family and he's been raising his four younger siblings since he was 12 years old. His situation is so sad. I love his fierce love and devotion to his family, his gentle nature and his ruthlessness. He's an extremely well-rounded character.

★ Mark Blackthorn. My favourite character arc in Lady Midnight. Mark has to adjust to the human world after being in the Hunt for such a long time and he has a lot of choices to make as he struggles to gain and understand his family's love and devotion.

★ Tiberius Blackthorn. Ty seems to be on the autism spectrum. I appreciate that he's seen as a character who views the world in a different way, that he's a well-rounded character and that he isn't reduced to damaging stereotypes.

★ Livia Blackthorn. She's such a precious character, but I didn't get a sense of her personality.

★ Drusilla Blackthorn. I can relate to Dru's obsession with all things morbid. She has body insecurities and I love the body positivity in Lady Midnight.

★ Octavian Blackthorn. Tavvy is a precious and pure child and needs to be protected at all costs.

★ Cristina Mendoza Rosales. She's my favourite character in Lady Midnight. She's mature, unapologetic about who she is, always sees things from different points of views and she's amazing. I love the friendship between her and Emma.

★ Diego Rocío Rosales. There isn't much about Diego in Lady Midnight but I think I like him. The fact that everyone calls him 'Perfect Diego' is hilarious.

★ Kieran. He does some messed up things all in the name of love and while I don't approve of it, I understand what he was trying to do.

★ Diana Wryburn. I love her and I'm interested in finding out more about her.

I also enjoyed reading about the Blackthorn family dynamics. They get frustrated with each other and they have their issues, but their love and devotion to each other is so real and beautiful.

There are two types of romance situations in Lady Midnight: a forbidden one and a messy one.

The forbidden romance is between parabatai, Emma and Julian. There's so much of romantic tension between Emma and Julian and clear to see that Emma and Julian are meant to be together, but the progression of their relationship seems so forced. However, I didn't mind the relationship angst because it added to the pain, conflicting emotions and heartbreak that Emma and Julian experience. The end of Lady Midnight made me so mad though. To stop the parabatai curse from happening, Emma breaks off her secret relationship with Julian and starts a fake relationship with his brother, Mark, so that Julian will stop loving her. Firstly, it's such a silly idea. Secondly, it's selfish because the already strained relationship between Julian and Mark is going to be negatively affected.

I'm quite interested to see how the messy romance plays out and I can't even say which relationship I like more than the other. There's Mark and Kieran and the history between them and what happens in Lady Midnight is so sad. I loved seeing Mark and Christina's relationship develop. I also like Christina and Diego together. I'm so conflicted. Can I just ship them all together?

Lady Midnight is really slow in the beginning and things only start happening halfway through. However, when Lady Midnight does pick up, it's engrossing. The plot of Lady Midnight is a little predictable and the villain is cliche and I didn't care much about Malcolm's betrayal and death, but I was all in and I didn't mind it.

There are two things that I appreciate in Lady Midnight:
1) The characters making the Clave own up to all the crappy things that they've done.
2) The fan service. Jace, Clary, Alec, Magnus, Jem and Tessa make appearances and we hear about Simon and Isabelle. They're engaged!

Also, The Lost Herondale, Kit, has been found, but I feel like he's included in The Dark Artifices series to keep the Herondale love going.

If this follows the trend that I usually have with Cassandra Clare books, The Dark Artifices series can only get better and I'm excited to see what happens in Lord of Shadows.

"The sea wears down cliffs, Emma, and turns them into sand; so love wears us down and breaks our defenses. You only do not know how much it means, to have people who will fight for you when it goes wrong." (Christina Mendoza Rosales)

[Leigha]

Emma Carstairs attempts to uncover the mystery behind her parents deaths in this young adult urban fantasy novel.

Cassandra Clare missed her calling as a soap opera writer. I’ve read the first three Mortal Instruments books and the entire Infernal Devices series and still the soap opera twists keep coming – “I love you, but we’re brother and sister;” “You’re my best friend, but we’re in love with the same person;” “I can only trust two people in this wor…oh my god, one of them betrayed me!” I sometimes get the feeling the plot points dictate the ending of the stories rather than character arcs. And how many love triangles do I have to sit through? HOW MANY?

While I’m not crazy about the plot, the characters and world-building are nuanced. Most of the characters had clear motivations and drive. I really did enjoy all of the characters, especially Emma and the Blackthorn siblings. The romance between Julian and Emma felt believable and passionate, but I felt most of the drama between the two was artificially created to keep them separated. As for the other love stories, I felt most of them were pretty meh. I’m not a fan of characters from the original series making an appearance in spin-off books, but it was not over done in this novel.

Overall, I suspect fans of her other series will enjoy this book too. She does improve as a writer the longer she writes, and you can tell she has spent a lot of time creating this unique, complex world. However, I’m just not invested in these dramatic, angst filled plot lines. I will not be continuing this series.

tl;dr Complex characters and intricate world building didn’t save me from enjoying the soap opera “oh my god” plot.

[Artemis]

Sigh. Not sure why I listened to my friend on this recommendation, swearing up and down that Clare has gotten better at everything I hated about the Mortal Instruments series. I will say that Infernal Devices is probably my favorite series of hers. Lady Midnight is just BORING. I breezed through this in a night – nothing about the forbidden love or story line was engaging. The story and characters felt so repeated.

[Cocktails and Books]

I'm dying!

[justine_manzano]

There's something about getting awfully sick that makes me read books at the speed of light. It's probably that I don't actually have time or energy to do anything but read. All I know is I don't generally read a 500 page book in 3 days.

The story didn't hurt though. I am a pretty vocal critic of Cassandra Clare's work and brutally hated Jace and Clary in The Mortal Instruments, but I fell for the supporting characters. This series is different. I fell hard for pretty much every character in this book, and the forbidden love angle was much less cringe-worthy and awful than the Luke/Leia dynamic of Jace/Clary. Forbidden to love each other by their government because of their bond as parabatai (closer than family, warriors who live and die for each other), Emma and Julian are very sympathetic characters. Emma can be reckless, but it is her drive for revenge for the death of her parents that makes her that way, not the arrogant bravado of Jace. Julian is easy to fall for, his love for his family and his need to keep his younger siblings together had him caring for children at the age of twelve.

Not only were the main characters easy to fall for, but I truly loved and cared for the large cast of family and friends living in the Institute. The story was interesting, but really, the characters won the day here, as I found them as interesting when fighting baddies as I did when eating breakfast together.

Still, Clare's stories often suffer from her offbeat preferences and here we go again. Her warlock, in the beginning, is strangely reminiscent of Magnus in the original trilogy, although he doesn't remain that way throughout. Clare feels the need to shoehorn as many mentions of her other characters into the book as possible, and it reads as pretty lame and repetitive much of the time, as if she needs to make sure she reminds us who Jace is from Emma, Julian, and Mark's points of view. She has more relatives hooking up, although they are distant cousins, but this habit is a little disturbing. And she seems to make all of her M/M ships feel highly sexualized without ever showing much at all of her one F/F ship, which makes me feel like she really enjoys fetishizing gay male relationships. Also, I guessed at the bad guy far earlier in the book, and a truly obvious clue was waved in front of the character's faces in a way that made the characters seem foolish for not figuring it out sooner.

Despite those suspicions and few annoyances, Clare's Shadowhunter world is an immersive one and I always find myself drawn in pretty easily. I just hope she manages to shed some of her odder tendencies in the future books of this trilogy (I always wish this, it never happens).

[Sam@WLABB]

Oh, how wonderful it was to be back in the Shadowhunter world! Once I was back there, I realized how much I missed it. I fell in love with the Blackthorn family, and Julian was such a beautiful hero, who loved his family more than himself. It was fun having characters from TMI and TID being a part of this series, and seeing how their lives have changed over the 5 years since the war. What struck me the most in this book, compared to the other Shadowhunter books, was it was such an epic romance. The other books had romance, but I never felt the romance was as prominent or swoony as it is in this book. I loved some things in the last chapter, and other things, not so much, but I know Clare will not let me down, and I will eagerly await the next book.

Cassandra Clare put so many gorgeous words in this book. I can tell by my highlighting, that I was totally absorbed by the love aspects. I am going to leave you with some of them:

"Laws are meaningless, child," Malcolm said in a low voice that somehow still carried. "There is nothing more important than love. And no law higher."

that the idea of losing Jules wrenched out of her: that the sky would go dark forever, that there would never be solid ground again.

I breathe when you breathe, I bleed when you bleed, I'm yours and you're mine, you've always been mine, and I have always, always belonged to you!

I love you, Julian Blackthorn. I love you more than starlight.

No law can control our feelings.

everyone who lives under this roof, whether they are bound by blood or not, we are tied together by an invisible net of love and duty and loyalty and honor. That is what it means to be a Shadowhunter. Family

There was beauty in the idea of freedom, but it was an illusion. Every human heart was chained by love.

[thebookdisciple]

I loved this book. Like, so much love!! It started off slow but I think Clare's books usually do. Then you get into the romances... At first I was like
"Oh that was NOT the relationship I expected (Mark)" and then it becomes a bit of a triangle...and by the end, its a freaking pentagon!!! Gah! And that ending...while the major action is wrapped up the relationships are TOTALLY not!
The narrator for this book was seriously perfect. SPOT ON!

[neddieb]

I found that this story was way too long. The story, in my opinion could have been better if it was 200 or more pages less. Too many unnecessary chapters. Some chapters just seemed as pointless fillers. I don't know, I really tried to get into this book, but I couldn't. I didn't even like the Mortal Instruments.

These books seem to follow the same plot line. Forbidden love that somehow the key characters are always trying to overcome the reasons why it's forbidden.

They are Shadow Hunters who are half Angel mind you, and who are always trying to break those rules to become romantically involved when they are not supposed to be. For example, in the Mortal Instruments, Clary and Jace in the beginning were thought to be siblings, and yet wanted to have a romantic relationship. GROSS! How can you even consider going through with that. Isn't that one of the worst laws a heavenly being can commit- Incest. It was just gross and a major turn off.

Now we have Emma and Julian who want to be romantically in love and they can't because they are Paratabai and of course that is forbidden as well. Noticing a trend in these books?

Emma learns the reason why, and that is that they would go mad and kill there loved ones and eventually themselves. Emma learning this secret from Jem, who by the way was was not supposed to reveal this secret, now turns to lying and deceiving Julian, while using his own brother Mark to help. What? no offense, but in my opinion these characters should not be Shadow Hunters, but Downloaders and even maybe Fey, because they are known as tricksters, liars, deceivers, and evil, unlike Angels who are supposed to be righteous. It just doesn't make sense to me.

[Chelsea]

Quick Thoughts
1. Not bad for a continuation of a very long series. I am getting a little bored of the same world though.
2. I liked these new characters but they felt almost the same as our old ones. Part of me wishes we didn't see our old characters at all in this series.
3. The plot was the best part. It was a little mysterious and it was fun trying to figure out some of the riddles.
4. I'll probably continue on with the series but if we don't see some different things happen then I'll most likely get bored and stop.
5. I find Cassandra Clare's writing never gets any better. I found there were A LOT of really awkward lines that really had no purpose in the book. We saw it with the condom line in CoHF and we see that same awkwardness here in this book.

[Kelly]

Any preconceived notions you had about Lady Midnight being just another Shadowhunters series, burn them to the ground. This. is. Incredible. The humour, the sass and the likable characters, I had to check the cover several times just to remember that this is actually Cassandra Clare.

Check out our discussion about all things Lady Midnight over at Diva Booknerd