There is very, very little I could say about the plot of this novel and not give away anything from it’s predecessor, Lady Midnight, or the other Shadowhunter Chronicals books before this, so I will keep it simple—the same synopsis as Lady Midnight. Lord of Shadows follows in the aftermath of this story:

It has been five years since the end of the Dark War and the beginning of the Cold Peace. Julien Blackthorn and Emma Carstairs are parabatai, the most sacred bond known to the Shadowhunters—a bond meant to strengthen the two in battle and to keep one another protected. A bond they can never break.

The L.A. Institute is filled with the Blackthorn children, all of which Julien has taken care of on his own, and all of them willing to do anything bring the missing pieces of their family back together. So when Emma, the most impressive Shadowhunter of her generation, and Julien, the most ruthless, patrol the streets of L.A. together and find an opportunity to get Julien’s brother, Mark, back from the Unseelie Courts and find out what happened to Emma’s parents five years ago, they can’t pass it up. All they have to do is find a murderer in the next two weeks. Or before the killer finds them.

Cassandra Clare ties adventure, duty, betrayal, and heartbreak in with a realm we have all fallen in love with so many times.

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Wow. I…I can’t even begin to say how much of an emotional rollercoaster this book was. I fell in love with all of the characters in Lady Midnight and I didn’t think I could love some of them more and I didn’t think I could hate some of them more but I was sorely wrong. There is something about Cassandra Clare’s writing. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I LOVE CASSANDRA CLARE. I will read her shopping lists. She knows exactly how to give you something you didn’t realize you wanted and keep you on the edge of your seat for literally 700 pages (which I was incredibly excited the Lord of Shadows was longer than Lady Midnight—big books are the best).

It was so heartwarming to have all of our Mortal Instruments character come back and be apart of the story as well—their relationships with the Dark Artifices cast is something to be jealous of.

Something to be said about reading Lord of Shadows is that, in order to read this book and not be totally and completely confused, you have to—and I mean HAVE TO—read the Mortal Instruments series, the Infernal Devices trilogy, and it wouldn’t hurt to have read the other stand alone-ish books in the Shadowhunter realm such as The Bane Chronicles and Tales From the Shadowhunter Academy (although I still haven’t read these…sorry).

If you would like to know exactly how to read the first two series in the Shadowhunter realm, see any of the Infernal Devices reviews on my Blog page.

There is only so much I can say about this book without spoiling the plot or the plot of previous books, but if you have read Lord of Shadows and you want to hear some in depth thoughts I had on the book, you are more than welcome to watch my book talk on it:

Have fun reading, nuggets.

“‘There is truth in stories,’ said Arthur. ‘There is truth in one of your paintings, boy or in a sunset or a couplet from Homer. Fiction is truth, even if it is not a fact. If you believe only in facts and forget stories, your brain will live, but your heart will die.'” -Cassandra Clare, Lord of Shadows 

-Alexandra