Surrounding the release of Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare we did a whole week with reviews and Shadowhunter related posts. We shared our reviews for Lady Midnight and Lord of Shadows and now we finally BOTH ( 😉 ) have finished Queen of Air and Darkness we can share this review as well! There will be spoilers for the first two books so proceed with caution! Please don’t read ahead if you haven’t read LoS yet because you WILL be spoiled and you will not be happy about it 😉

What if damnation is the price of true love?

Innocent blood has been spilled on the steps of the Council Hall, the sacred stronghold of the Shadowhunters. In the wake of the tragic death of Livia Blackthorn, the Clave teeters on the brink of civil war. One fragment of the Blackthorn family flees to Los Angeles, seeking to discover the source of the blight that is destroying the race of warlocks.

Meanwhile, Julian and Emma take desperate measures to put their forbidden love aside and undertake a perilous mission to Faerie to retrieve the Black Volume of the Dead. What they find in the Courts is a secret that may tear the Shadow World asunder and open a dark path into a future they could never have imagined. Caught in a race against time, Emma and Julian must save the world of Shadowhunters before the deadly power of the parabatai curse destroys them and everyone they love.

Cover

Candyce I love that all the covers in this trilogy fit well together. The colors used and just the whole feel to the cover is really nice! As someone who doesn’t like people on a cover, I have to say it doesn’t bug me much here!

Isabelle I actually quite like this cover. It fits nicely with the rest of the covers and while I don’t usually like people on covers, I really don’t mind it here. And the colors on this one are gorgeous!

“Some lights were never meant to burn for long.”

Plot

Candyce Queen of Air and Darkness basically takes off where Lord of Shadows ended. They’ve suffered tragedy, but so much is happening. This book made me feel so many emotions!

What I love about these books is that so much is going on at once. We don’t just follow what happens with the Cohort, but all the characters have things going on. It helps that we read the chapters from multiple POVs. Queen of Air and Darkness is a long book, but I didn’t feel bored at all. In the end everything came together. I have to say in a way the ending disappointed me a bit. I think it all came together maybe too easy? With everything going on, I maybe expected more tragedy or devastation. There was just a little too much of “they all live happily ever after”.

Don’t get me wrong, I love when characters are happy in the end, but with a war, I guess I expected more to go wrong? Another aspect of this story that I loved was the new world, Thule, that was introduced to us. It was quite interesting to see what happened if they didn’t win the war at the end of The Mortal Instruments. I really hope she explores that more in future books. All in all, Queen of Air and Darkness is a well told story!

Isabelle This book is BIG and I actually read it pretty quickly. If only I read all big books that fast haha. I enjoyed all the different POVs we got and how well-rounded that makes the story. Like Candyce said, there is so much going on and you want to know what is happening and where at all times haha.

I absolutely loved the second part of the book and the world of Thule. This is a favorite storyline of mine and think it was done quite well. I adored all the characters we saw in this part and really wished we could’ve gotten more. The stories of some of these characters destroyed me and I wished some of them would’ve come along to our world.

With how much I loved the second part, I was a little bit disappointed with the third part. It started out pretty decent and I was excited to see how the whole ‘war’ would come to a climax and to see what Julian had planned for all of us. Julian could honestly be such a wonderful villainous mastermind and I love his scheming. So at first I was loving all that I was reading. But than we came to the actual climax and I was not a fan. It was all wrapped up to neatly with not enough death and gore for me haha. While I love a happy ending, I don’t think it’s realistic in this situation and wished it ended just a little bit different.

I am a big fan of the epilogue! That was just screaming out loud insaneness and I’m so excited to read more. Why do we have to wait until 2022? With all that has gone down with the Cohort this book set us up for quite the story. I believe The Wicked Powers will be the last series set in this world and I’m so scared how everything will end.

“Faith isn’t never having any doubts; it’s having what you need to overcome them.”

Characters

Candyce My favorite characters are from The Infernal Devices, but these characters are close to bumping them off of their throne! Emma is such a sassy and strong female lead! I loved reading about her journey. After everything she went through, she never gave up! Julian actually kind of annoyed me in this book (for reasons I can’t explain without giving too much away). While I love how protective and caring he is for his siblings, some decisions just didn’t do it for me.

I also could’ve done without the parabatai curse I think. While I get why it was explored, I don’t think we would’ve missed too much. My favorite part of these characters was the relationship between Cristina, Kieran & Mark. I love that the author explored this relationship in the way she did. I’m even kind of hoping they get their own story!

Ty and Kit are a lot of fun as well. Kit is discovering a whole new world and how he fits in it. He’s realizing how much he doesn’t know about his past. I love how strong he became though and how he just kind of fit with Ty. I love Ty. It’s nice seeing a character who is a bit different. There should’ve been chapters told from his POV though! I think it would’ve added more to the story!

The Cohort annoyed me so much!! It’s rather realistic though in this day and age. People with different ideals can be rather radical. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them either. And last but not least, we got to see so many old characters we know and love! These books are connected in such a fun way!

Isabelle This series follows some of my absolute favorite characters ever! Emma is my favorite leading lady out of the three Cassandra Clare has blessed us with by far. And while I also like Julian, they aren’t my favorite thing in this series at all. I do enjoy reading about them, but I’m not sad their story is over, I’m actually happy it is. The parabatai curse was my least favorite thing in these books. I do love Julian’s love for his family and live for their interactions.

Ty is possibly my favorite character out of the bunch, and I love his friendship with Kit. I’m so so so excited for The Wicked Powers and wish that was the next Shadowhunter book we were getting. His autism is written so well and he needs to be protected at all costs. He possibly suffered the most out of all the Blackthorn siblings and I loved his storyline. Kit is wonderful and I loved how he supported Ty. I could simply gush about these two all day, every day.

We got to see more of Dru this time around, and I loved reading about her. I’m so excited to see more of her in TWP. She will for sure grow even more in the next trilogy and she deserves all the love in the world. I’m already shipping her with about 3 people and it will me wonderful!

There are so many characters in this book and I can’t talk about all of them without this review being wayyyy too long but I do have to mention a couple more. I adore Cristina, Mark and Kieran and am so happy about the way their relationship was written. This is not something you see in YA and it was amazing, all though I was a tiny bit disappointed. I hope we will see more of this in TWP.

Helen Blackthorn and Aline Penhallow are couple goals and I was happy to finally actually read about them. I especially loved Aline standing up for Helen. Diana and Gwyn are wonderful as well and it was so good to see a trans character in this world. Cassandra Clare does an amazing job with diversity. We got so much representation in The Dark Artifices and it was done beautifully.

I was very disappointed with Annabel, her story could’ve been so much more. The wrap up on her part felt like a bit of an afterthought. The Cohort is absolutely despicable and I wish they’d all DIED. But alas, Cassie decided to torture us some more. I’m very excited to see how all of this is going to play out in the Wicked Powers (are you sick of me mentioning TWP yet? haha).

“As we all have an infinite capacity to make mistakes, we all have an infinite capacity for forgiveness.”

We can’t believe The Dark Artifices series is completed already! But with the way everything ended we’re so excited for The Wicked Powers trilogy, how cruel Cassandra Clare is to first go back to The Last Hours trilogy, haha. Did you read Queen of Air and Darkness yet? Share your thoughts in the comments!