By CAITLIN HOFEN, Features Editor
Set in modern-day Los Angeles, “Lady Midnight” by Cassandra Clare is the first book in “The Dark Artifices” trilogy.
It is also the start of the fourth installment of “The Shadowhunter Chronicles.”
“Lady Midnight” is based on the poem “Anabelle Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe, with each chapter named after a part of the poem and the poem itself playing a major role in the plot of the novel.
To begin, Cassandra Clare is one of my favorite authors, with “Lady Midnight” as one of her top-rated novels.
While there are numerous novels attached to “The Shadowhunter Chronicles,” Clare has said in interviews she is proud that anyone can pick up any of the Shadowhunter books and not feel lost in the lore she’s created within the connected storylines.
For a little context, Shadowhunters, or Nephilim, are a race of humans who possess angel blood.
They are tasked with patrolling the Shadow World and prevent demons as well as Downworlders, including warlocks, faeries, werewolves and vampires, from attacking the mundanes, or normal people.
Through her novels, Clare introduces readers to the world she created based of fairy tales and mythologies, both pagan and Judeo-Christian.
“Lady Midnight” starts five years after the events that occurred in a previous novel, “City of Heavenly Fire.”
The main character, Emma Carstairs, is a young woman determined to investigate and avenge the deaths of her parents.
As a series of demonic deaths stretch across the beaches of Los Angeles, Emma, with her parabatai Julian Blackthorn, starts investigating the apparent murders.
To make matters more complicated, Julian’s brother Mark returns as a bargaining chip from the faeries, who captured him five years ago.
The faeries are desperate to find out who is murdering their kind and want the Shadowhunters’ help.
As an urban fantasy novel, “Lady Midnight” combines modern landmarks and cities with the magic and lore of the fantasy world Clare created.
The characters deal with loss, love, fear and obstacles any human can face – they just so happen to be protecting the world from demons.
I particularly enjoyed the forbidden love aspect interwoven with the novel’s plot.
The characters are extremely believable, with each one playing key roles in solving the main conflict of the story.
I think almost anyone can find a character they can relate to within the world of Shadowhunters.
The storyline of “Lady Midnight” is complex, with rarely a dull moment.
There are many subplots weaving underneath the main problem of the mystery murders.
As the characters start trying to place pieces of the puzzle together, they run into obstacle after obstacle.
The story itself is written from a first-person perspective with the narrator switching every chapter.
This is how the subplots of the novel play out, as each character focuses on their own struggles and the demonic murders as the main conflict of the story.
In conclusion, “Lady Midnight” thrusts readers into the world of Shadowhunters.
The story engages readers and introduces a world of magic, mystery and danger wrapped in lore and fantasy readers can get lost in.