Book Review
Title: The Bane Chronicles: Vampires, Scones and Edmund Herondale
Author: Cassandra Clare & Sarah Rees Brennan
Genre: YA/Paranormal/Fantasy/Romance
Rating: *****
Review: I loved both What Really Happened in Peru and The Runaway Queen, the first two stories in the Bane Chronicles and this story takes place in 1857 in Victorian London. Magnus is recovering from the events in France and is harbouring quite the grudge against vampires, that is until he meets the lovely Lady Camille Belcourt who is also attending to Consul to discuss peace accords with many other Downworlders. Here we get see some names we are familiar with like Morgenstern and Fairchild.
The Shadowhunters and the Downworlders are trying to agree to some accords but are finding that there is a wide variation in the ways they think as the Shadowhunters think they above the Downworlders and won’t offer them the protections they want from the accords despite several meetings. However, some interesting things happen during these meetings as Magnus meets Camille and finds himself soon falling in love with her, but she is in love with a werewolf boy. He also ends up becoming good friend with Edmund Herondale and is even there when he saves the woman he would come to love from a demon.
Edmund is a young, naïve boy but he has a good head on his shoulder and quickly becomes engage to Miss Owens and intends to marry her but due to Shadowhunter Law she would have to become a Shadowhunter or Edmund would have to reject the ways of Angel. As his fiancé has no desire to become a Shadowhunter and Edmund has no desire to make her one, he decides to walk away from being a Shadowhunter in order to be with her even as he is tortured through the removal of his marks which Magnus finds disgusting. However, he also realises that both he and Camille are immortal so he tells her to go a love the werewolf boy and he will leave London and when he returns he would like her at his side and he agrees, although at that moment in time he is unaware that very soon he will be meeting another Herondale in need of his assistance.
Meeting the Shadowhunter families in this story provides some nice context on certain things that are discussed in City of Bones, but they also provide a nice entry into The Infernal Devices trilogy which is next on my list to be read.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Also see: City of Bones
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