Cassandra Clare: Lord of Shadows - What Happened?

So this is the second of The Dark Artifices and both books are already stressing me out. To add to this, the next one, Queen of Air and Darkness, is not out until 2019. I really don't know how I'm going to wait two years to have anything resolved. To sum up my thoughts on both of them - wow.

Kudos to Cassandra Clare for really pulling out all the stops here. I think these are probably my favourite series. Everything that could happen happened but it was done so well that I wasn't overwhelmed by events. That doesn't stop me wondering- What Happened?

Everything was going so moderately disastrous. It was all at a level I could manage easily enough. In Lady Midnight, a psycho warlock tried to kill them to raise his long dead love but it was alright because Mark was back and Malcolm died anyway. The second book Malcolm and his love were back but she killed him so uhh... fair's fair.

Then the last 20 pages happened.

I'll come to those some other day but for now we'll focus on the main reason they were so disastrous.

Julian had just about managed to scrape together a flimsy plan which would make everyone happy. Yaaaaay!! However as something might start going right for the main characters everything had to go wrong. I'll be honest it wasn't the most fool proof plan in the world. There were so many holes in it it would have made an abysmal safety net. Poor, dear, sweet Julian was relying on the most unreliable things and people of all time.

The general idea of the plan wasn't completely awful. It actually seemed perfect as all their goals would be achieved. They could have the Black Volume and therefore the assistance of the seelie court, they could restore the Blackthorn image and they could end the cold peace and bring the family together again.

First let's talk about Annabel. What a psycho and what on earth was Julian thinking? She'd just risen from the dead after months of being trapped in her head and was still convinced the world was against her. She was deranged, tortured and had a weird attachment to Magnus & Julian not to mention she was in possession of an incredibly powerful dark artifice. Did I mention she murdered her own lover, the one who brought her back to life? Anyone who didn't know every part of the story wouldn't listen to her. I don't even think I would listen to her. Her mental health is honestly about as stable as the UK after Brexit. Putting her in front of the council (who were responsible for her past experiences) and getting them to listen? That would be traumatising for her and too risky. I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures.

Next up Kieran of the Hunt. He admittedly is not as much as a wild card as Annabel but is still quite temperamental. He clearly has some issues considering he wanted his boyfriend to receive corporal punishment for a smallish crime just because he thought he was cheating (which he kind if was but we're going to ignore that for the sake of making a point). That doesn't exactly scream I'M A REASONABLE PERSON. Also Julian's little comment about love complicating things (the hypocrite) was totally useless because instead we ended up with this weird sort of love triangle in which Mark wanted both Christina and Keiran and both of them wanted him. Keiran is also a drama queen. How was he supposed to give a decent testimony when all his feelings are tangled up? I would normally go harder on him but he lost his memories and then had them thrown back at him harshly so I decided to go easy on him.

The final foolish thing the plan was based on was the goodness in human hearts. All I'm going to say is, if it was within people to take into account how others may feel and find fault in their own actions, Hitler would not have happened to the extent that he did. That's why shadowhunters should learn from mundane history instead of frowning on it then repeating the same dumb mistakes.

Anyway, those are my thoughts so far.Tune in next time to find out just what happened in those last 20 pages featuring our series favourite couple Emma & Julian, our best set of twins Livvy & Ty and the all time ultimate couple Malec!