“Every night of the year, the market lived and breathed and thrived. The stalls were always changing, but the energy remained, as much a part of the city as the river it fed on. Kell traced the edge of the bank, weaving through the evening fair, savoring the taste and smell of the air, the sound of laughter and music, the thrum of magic.“
Kell is one of the last magicians with the ability to travel between the parallel Londons: Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black. Kell was raised in Arnes, Red London, and officially serves the Maresh Empire as their ambassador navigating the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the Grey one. However, unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, taking little knickknacks from one world to another. However, this defiant hobby has dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand after an exchange goes awry. Escaping to Grey London, he runs into aspiring pirate Delilah Bard, who after robbing him and then saving him, forces him to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.
I remember reading this when it first came out in 2015 and loving it so much. It was an easy 5 star read for me at the time. I love Kell and his coat of many sides, I love the concept of the parallel worlds, I even loved Holland and his wish for death. I loved it all. However, after re-reading it for one of my 2021 reading challenges, I don’t love it as much as I used to. I think this is something that happens in every readers life, but I wish it wasn’t happening with this book. That being said, I still think that there are a great many readers who will love this book, but I’m not so blind anymore as to not see its weaknesses.
This book is categorized as an adult fantasy, but honestly some of it reads a little more Y.A. It is probably rated this way because of some of the scenes of torture, fantasy violence and the fact that all of the main characters are adults. It would make a really great bridge between readers who have read mostly Y.A. fantasy, but want to start reading adult fantasy. The world building is still intricate, but not nearly as some other adult fantasy novels, the pacing is a little faster than most of them, and I would say that there is a bit more humor involved in the banter between characters. However, for me where this falls a little flat is the plot.
The plot is fairly linear and straightforward. There aren’t a lot of side arcs or even that much character growth in this novel. However, I have a theory about this. I think this was originally written as a standalone. There wouldn’t be any unfinished arcs because everything needed to conclude in this book. I can only guess that because of its success, they signed on for two more books. Now, I’m not sure if there are any unfinished arcs in the next book because I don’t remember it very well, but if there are some that carry over to book three this is going to be my argument for that.
That being said, I really love Kell and Rhy. Their adorable brotherly love and joint sarcasm is highly enjoyable. At least for me. Lila is fine. I enjoyed her more this go around than I did the first time I read this book, but she still smacks of “not like other girls.” However, I also enjoy her sarcasm. Basically, I like sarcasm and these characters employ it a lot. That being said, I didn’t feel as much for these characters as I thought I did the first time I read it. I’m hoping that they evoke more feelings in the second book, but we’ll see.
Something that I feel needs to be brought up more is that this book series has a few LGBTQ+ characters in it. Rhy being the most visible and obvious one in this book. He’s is openly written as bisexual, and later gets a love interest. There is a gay character introduced in the second book and then there is Lila. Lila is described often as “cross-dressing,” but V.E. Schwab confirmed, the same year the book came out, that Lila is in fact genderfluid. And Schwab noted that if Lila was from the modern era that she would most likely be non-binary, but because she’s still a product of 1819 London, she is instead genderfluid. Now, as I am not bisexual, gay, or genderfluid I can’t say whether the representation is good, but it is there.
Overall, I would recommend this for fans of soft fantasy,readers looking for a bridge from Y.A. into adult fantasy, lovers of evil twins as villains, and fanatics of Londons of every color. However, I think most people who want to read this probably have already and I acknowledge that this review isn’t going to convince any fence sitters, which is probably for the best. I have read A Gathering of Shadows before and really enjoyed it, but this year will be the first time I’ve read A Conjuring of Light, as my copy was shipped home while I was living in China. Hopefully, I enjoy them as well, but I am a little worried that the luster will has worn off.
Have you read A Darker Shade of Magic? What do you think? Did you like Lila? Did you think she’s good genderfluid representation? Let me know in the comments below!
Important Bits:
Length: 400 pages
Published: February 24, 2015 by Tor Books
Content Warnings: Torture, Death, Blood, Fantasy Violence
Awards: Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire Roman jeunesse étranger (2019),Tähtifantasia Award (2020),Goodreads Choice Award Fantasy (2015)
Shades of Magic Series: A Darker Shade of Magic (2015), A Gathering of Shadows (2016), A Conjuring of Light (2017)
Also by:
Under V.E. Schwab: Vicious (2013), A Darker Shade of Magic (2015), A Gathering of Shadows (2016), A Conjuring of Light (2017), Vengeful (2018), The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020), Vampires Never Get Old (2020), A Universe of Wishes (2020), Gallant (2022)
Under Victoria Schwab: The Near Witch (2011), The Archived (2013), The Unbound (2014), This Savage Song (2016), Our Dark Duet (2017), Because You Love to Hate Me (2017), City of Ghosts (2018), [Don’t] Call Me Crazy (2018), Tunnel of Bones (2019), Bridge of Souls (2021)
