Author- Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brenan, Maureen Jonhson, Kelly Link and Robin Wasserman
Series- The Shadowhunter Chronicles
Published- 2019
Page Count- 624
Publishing House- Walker Books
Genre- YA Urban Fantasy
Rating- 3/5 stars
About the Authors
Judith Lewis (née Rumelt, born July 27, 1973), better known by her pen name Cassandra Clare, is an American author of young adult fiction, best known for her bestselling series The Mortal Instruments.
(Taken from Wikipedia)
Sarah Rees Brennan (born 21 September 1983) is an Irish writer best known for young adult fantasy fiction. Her first novel, The Demon's Lexicon, was released June 2009 by Simon & Schuster. Brennan's books are bestsellers in the UK.
(Taken from Wikipedia)
Maureen Johnson (born February 16, 1973) is an American author of young adult fiction. She has published thirteen young adult novels to date, including such series as the Truly Devious novels, the Shades of London series, and Suite Scarlett. Johnson's work has also appeared in numerous written anthologies and comprises notable collaborative works with her contemporaries, such as Let It Snow, a holiday romance novel currently under adaption to film for distribution by Netflix.
(Taken from Wikipedia)
Kelly Link (born 1969) is an American editor and author of short stories. While some of her fiction falls more clearly within genre categories, many of her stories might be described as slipstream or magic realism: a combination of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and realism. Among other honors, she has won a Hugo award, three Nebula awards, and a World Fantasy Award for her fiction, and she was one of the recipients of the 2018 MacArthur "Genius" Grant.
(Taken from Wikipedia)
Robin Wasserman (born May 31, 1978) is an American young adult novelist.
Wasserman grew up outside of Philadelphia and graduated from Harvard University and UCLA. Before she was an author she was an associate editor at a children's book publisher. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California, and is on the faculty of the Mountainview Low-Residency MFA program at SNHU.
(Taken from Wikipedia)
Plot
The Shadow Market is a meeting point for faeries, werewolves, warlocks and vampires. There the Downworlders buy and sell magical objects, make dark bargains, and whisper secrets they do not want the Nephilim to know. Through two centuries, however, there has been a frequent visitor to the Shadow Market from the City of Bones, the very heart of the Shadowhunters. As a Silent Brother, Brother Zachariah is sworn keeper of the laws and lore of the Nephilim. But once he was a Shadowhunter called Jem Carstairs, and his love, then and always, is the warlock Tessa Gray.
Follow Brother Zachariah and see, against the backdrop of the Shadow Market’s dark dealings and festive celebrations, Anna Lightwood’s first romance, Matthew Fairchild’s great sin and Tessa Gray plunged into a world war. Valentine Morgenstern buys a soul at the Market and a young Jace Wayland’s soul finds safe harbor. In the Market is hidden a lost heir and a beloved ghost, and no one can save you once you have traded away your heart. Not even Brother Zachariah...
Ghosts of the Shadow Market will be co-written with Maureen Johnson, Robin Wasserman, Sarah Rees Brennan and Pulitzer finalist Kelly Link and will initially be available digitally.
The first eight stories will be published as e-books from around March 2018 monthly, with the final two available in a print bind-up of all the stories, to be published in 2019.
(Taken from Goodreads)
Opinions
Normally, I am a huge fan of anything and everything that Cassandra Clare published, but this is the first time since I became a fan of hers that I haven't actively liked her book. I had really enjoyed both of her other novella bind-ups that had been published, but I found I didn't care much for this one. To me, it felt like it was published because there was a lot of nostalgia in some of the stories and to set up books that haven't been published yet.
If I'm being honest, I preferred the stories about the Lost Hours characters as it was nice getting to know what they were like. There was one novella that I absolutely loved, which I'll talk about in a bit. I also did like getting to know about Kit's backstory as he is one of my favourite characters. There were some stories that were about obscure characters, which to me, felt like they did need to be told.
My absolute favourite story was Every Exquisite Thing. This was the second novella in the book and it was hands down the best. It delved into the backstory of Anna Lightwood, a character that will feature in The Lost Hours. It was my favourite because of the great representation. Anna is a genderqueer lesbian in a time when something like that would have been frowned upon. I loved this little story and I hope we get to see more from Anna as she is a character I am beginning to love wholeheartedly.
The introduction of Mina Carstairs filled my heart with such joy. Seeing Jem have the family he wanted for so long made me feel insanely happy. To further this, the inclusion of Kit in this family almost brought me to tears. I'm hoping that in the Wicked Powers we will see some kind of brother-sister dynamic between the two. The fact the Jem named his daughter in honour of Will made me fall in love with the TID cast all over again. I may not have been the biggest fan of the novella she was introduced in, but the scenes with baby Mina were adorable.
