Hello everyone!
Tonight's blog post is another compilation, since I feel like it would be cheating if I just posted each book separately, and honestly it makes much more sense to me to bring them all together into one blog post and not three.
Although I WILL admit that I'm confused since I was fairly sure I'd reviewed the first one of the trilogy at some point ...
Apparently not.
Anyway, with Shadowhunters going in for the kill with their last two episodes of the season, I felt like I should honour them somehow, and then remembered that I'd read and finished The Infernal Devices series, also by Cassandra Clare, not too long ago.
See I actually started it earlier, but for some reason never got around to books two and three, but this time around what I did was just sit there until I finished it all.
You can't go wrong that way, really. So here we go, a blog post to review The Infernal Devices!
The trilogy consists of three books (well ... duh): Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince and Clockwork Princess, and follows the story of the Shadowhunters at the London Institute, as well as a cameo appearance by a few fan favourites along the way.
We're looking mostly at you, Magnus.
The story itself, however, centers around Fairchilds, Herondales, and Lightwoods. Sounds familiar? Looks like certain Shadowhunter families just can't catch a break, no matter how hard they try!
In Clockwork Angel we meet Tessa Gray, an American girl who is travelling to England after the death of her aunt to live with her brother Nate, but instead of him she gets kidnapped by two sisters - and honestly, they're demons of some kind so you know it's going to be bad. They teach Tessa magic, out of everything she could ever have imagined, and she learns how to shift herself into becoming someone else simply by holding an artefact of theirs for a time. Unfortunately, she's also slated to marry this guy called the Magister, but thankfully Will Herondale and Jem Carstairs barge in first.
The duo rescue Tessa and take her back to the Institute where Charlotte and Henry Branwell take her in and the lot of them decide they might as well catch this Magister while they're at it seeing as he's a threat to the Downworld. Not to mention the fact they need to find Nate.
In the end though, what happens is that the Magister is someone no one expected - Mortmain, Nate's employer (oh yeah, Nate is totally a bad guy in this one) and he's building an army of clockwork automatons to get rid of Shadowhunters and rule the world. He's stopped this time, but not caught or killed, so the race is on.
In Clockwork Prince, we learn a little more about Will and Jem and their relationship as Parabatai, as well as with Tessa, who they both seem to be in love with (and I sit here banging my head against the desk for another love triangle, but what can you do?), but equally we see more from the Lightwood family who seem to be one of those arrogant branches that reminds me a lot of the Malfoys back in Harry Potter. Maybe that was the whole point, who knows? Anyway, if the London Institute doesn't find and apprehend Mortmain within a certain time frame, Charlotte will be removed and the Lightwoods will get the Institute.
It really doesn't help matters at all that Will is on a personal quest to find a demon who supposedly cursed him (with the help of one Magnus Bane, because a warlock can summon demons, of course) or that the Lightwoods help train Tessa and Sophie (a lady's maid and servant of the Institute).
Mostly though, we learn that there's still more to Tessa than meets the eye after a visit to Yorkshire, that Benedict Lightwood is secretly working with Mortmain and cavorting with demons, and that Nate tricked Jessamine, another Shadowhunter, into supposedly marrying him, while she betrayed the Institute. Eventually, they corner Nate in a warehouse where he loses his life during the fight, and Jem asks Tessa to marry him at the same time as Will realises there is no curse but that he can't have Tessa.
Also, that his sister Cecily has come to train as a Shadowhunter.
In Clockwork Princess, the conclusion of this stunning prequel trilogy which I thoroughly enjoyed despite the teenage angst and drama, our heroes are still hot on the trail of Mortmain, but also preparing for Tessa's wedding to Jem and Charlotte having Henry's baby. Of course there's no rest for the wicked, or those hunting the wicked, as the hunt is still on and we also learn that the Starkweathers of Yorkshire apparently have some sort of secret which connects to Tessa. This is later revealed to be that the granddaughter of the family was switched for a regular girl, and the unmarked Shadowhunter grew up to be Tessa's mother, who was then impregnated by a demon, creating a new kind of warlock in Tessa, without the typical mark.
There's no time for sitting there and thinking though as Gabriel Lightwood arrives asking for help, and the lot head off to dispose of Benedict, his father, who, having demon pox, has turned into a demon himself (er, worm, actually ... you get the idea). This is later used as a way to try and prevent Charlotte from becoming Consul and for blackmailing the Lightwood boys into spying on her, though the pair actually turn tables on the current Consul so there's nothing to worry about.
We have bigger issues anyway - Jem is dying. He needs yin fen to survive and there's no more of it to be found, except with Mortmain, who will hand it over if Tessa agrees to marry him. Eventually, Tessa is simply kidnapped and taken to Cadair Idris, a place the now-deceased Jessamine (she died when Tessa was abducted) claimed Mortmain was at, but as she could only say Idris, everyone thought she was talking about the Shadowhunter country.
Cadair Idris is a mountain in Wales, however, where the Shadowhunters converge while Mortmain issues an attack on the Conclave. After thinking Jem had died, the lot are surprised to see him as Brother Zachariah - a member of the Silent Brothers now. Tessa saves the day when she realises that a piece of the angel Ithuriel (man this angel has no luck, he keeps getting caught!) is stuck in her clockwork angel pendant, and shifts into him to kill Mortmain but nearly kills herself in the process.
In the aftermath, we learn about what happens later - Will and Tessa marry and have children, Gideon marries the Ascended Sophie, and Gabriel marries Cecily, and they each have children of their own. Charlotte becomes Consul and has two children with Henry. Interspaced through this are many memories of Jem, or Brother Zachariah, as he could never quite be detached from the Shadowhunters he so loved in life. Eventually, Will dies of old age surrounded by friends and family, and in 2008 (after the first Mortal Instruments trilogy) Tessa and Jem meet on Blackfriars Bridge, where they'd kept meeting during his time as Silent Brother. He is no longer one, though, but mortal, and the two of them finally consumate their relationship.
There are two short stories to accompany this trilogy, one titled Before the Bridge and the other After the Bridge, both showing aspects of the main three characters who consist of this trilogy. We also learn just how Jace Herondale got his star-shaped mark - while in Cadair Idris, Tessa and Will consumate their relationship and the clockwork angel rests against Will, leaving the mark behind; afterwards, all male Herondales had it.
I really enjoyed this trilogy and some explanations to things which happened or were done in the Mortal Instruments, and I'm looking forward to rereading those books now that I have these as a sort of foundation.
I think I'm getting too old for YA novels, however, because the amount of teenage angst in them makes me want to gouge my eyes out sometimes haha!
If you have yet to read these, I highly recommend them. They're quite unique, intriguing, and funny on top of everything else - because, seriously, when a Shadowhunter gets pulled into the Thames river by a cross between the Kraken and that Watcher in the water, and his Parabatai just sits there watching the other get his kicks in, well, you know it'll be good!
xx
*images not mine
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