Kell’s sense of wonder in the differences between them as he crosses between is infectious, and I honestly wanted nothing more than to follow him through his portals as he went about his regular business.įor me, one of the best indicators of talent and quality is whether I’d want to spend time with characters when they’re not doing anything heroic. White London is skin-pricklingly creepy and Red London is a fully-realized wonderland. Grey London is recognizable as our world during the reign of George III (or, at least, something very similar). When you have multiple worlds to build, you’d better make sure building worlds is one of your best skills. The worldbuilding is amazing, which I suppose is not terribly surprising. But for me, the best part is before anything starts to happen. If anything, I wish more of the book had followed Kell’s day-to-day. Almost all the reviews I saw claim that A Darker Shade of Magic takes a little while to get going but is excellent once it gets going. I skimmed the Goodreads reviews before I started reading, and having done so I braced myself for a slow start. Although it is forbidden to bring souvenirs through the portals, Kell can’t help himself and eventually it all goes terribly wrong. One of these Antari, Kell, is the adopted son of the royal family of magically-rich Red London, and is tasked with conveying messages to the other worlds. Only a few people, called Antari, possess the magic requisite to move from one London to another.
In short, A Darker Shade of Magic is about a set of alternate universes with intersections over London. By the time I get around to the sequel, I’m sure I’ll have forgotten most of what happened. And then I stupidly waited almost a whole month between liking it and recording my thoughts about why I liked it. But then randomly this year I decided to request A Darker Shade of Magic from the library and found myself really enjoying it. This seemed like a double good idea when I read and mostly disliked one of Schwab’s other books ( This Savage Song).I figured that this was simply not an author for me.
But I also decided that I’d let that particular person’s suggestions go in one ear and out the other. I wrote a full review for that book but decided not to ever post it because it felt too mean. I try to read the books that people recommend to me, but I put this one off because this person had previously recommended A Discovery of Witches, which EASILY makes the my personal list for worst books I’ve ever read. The first time someone told me to read it was something like five years ago.
For me, there’s been a lot of delay with V.E.
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