Mark This Book Monday: A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab!!!

Hello there guys!

Happy Monday! Yes, it's Monday, the week starts, but since I've been working the weekend... it is just another day but one where I can get book mail! ;)

Today for Mark This Book Monday I have an amazing book to feature and share and flail about! I read & loved the sampler but given my book buying ban I didn't preorder it, but on release day I decided to say "To hell with it!" and buy the book BUT it was already out of stock in many places! Which wasn't all that cool until it meant I got a brainwave, asked the author for where to buy signed copies, and I ended up getting a signed and personalized copy of it, from Scotland! =D

And since this one is a 2015 release it counts towards that category in my 105 Challenge!

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Holy crackers!

I read the sampler for A Darker Shade of Magic, I absolutely loved it and was so excited to finally continue reading! When I finally got my hands on a copy of (signed!!) I knew I needed to save it for a day off, cause I wanted to read it from start to finish!

And that's what I did! And it just cannot be done any other way, because once you start reading this one, you just don't want to stop! At first because you are so intrigued about the characters you are meeting and the worlds you are discovering, and soon enough it is because you already care for those characters and the action starts ramping up and then they keep rescuing each other and getting into even more trouble, and then the shit has hit the fan and no one seems to have realized it!

The world the author has created in this book is fascinating and I love how we've got plenty of pieces to feel like these different Londons are all real, as familiar or as alien as they might feel to us. But at the same time, I love that there's still a lot to discover about them.

Grey London, the more normal London, the one without magic, the one more like our world and the one that felt like the Jack the Ripper's London for some reason to me (Victorian London after all), it's quite full of surprises after all. Red London, the most magical but also the more orderly, is fascinating but we get only a glimpse of the city itself, and there are quite some secrets and mysteries around it still. White London, the most crazy and dangerous of the lot, with mad rulers and a hunger for magic that it's more dangerous than magic itself! And finally Black London, the most mysterious of the lot and the cautionary tale for all magic users!

But as much as I feel that we got a real feel for all the places, that the atmosphere was so real and different when switching from one London to another and I was completely immersed... I feel that we have just but scratched the surface of these worlds! I feel like there is so much more coming and I just cannot wait to visit more and discover more and see more in the next book! I feel like that's the mark of an amazing first book: you get a complete overview of the world with enough information to make it feel real BUT having enough to make it grow even bigger and better in the upcoming books!

I fell in love with the characters quite easily too. Both Kell and Lila are delightful and different and complex and I adore how Lila is entirely unapologetic of who she is, what she does and what she wants! She's a pirate looking for her ship and adventures and she finds way more that she could ever dream about! I love how different and at the same time how similar Lila and Kell are, because both accept who they are but want more and keep having their own ways to rebel about the cards they have been dealt.

And not only the main characters feel real and you feel like cheering for them, every single character you encounter has a genuine feeling to them, even if it's just a man that lost a game of cards once against Kell, or the lady that sells Lila the clothes she always wanted, and even more the bigger secondary characters like Rhys, and Holland and the evil twins. And let's not forget about the magic, because at some point in the book you feel like the magic IS a character too, and one that worries you as much as the human villains! And really I won't give any more details because I might end up getting into spoilery territory, and I want to avoid that at all costs!

So, the world building is fantastic, the characters are amazing... and the plot? The plot is brilliant! It's quite hard to manage to build a plot and make it progress and get to a resolution in a first book of a trilogy but the author managed to do so in here and brilliantly! There was so much tension once we reach the climax of the story! But yes, you heard it right, there is resolution and a full story arc closes, and no, there is not a cliffhanger (what?! YES, you heard right!) but an ending, it might be an open ending, and yes it does leave you wanting more because you need more Lila, more Kell, more Rhys and yes what if?? and you want to know MORE about everything!

As I guess it's easy to surmise from my overly wordy review, I adored this book and I just cannot wait to get my hands on its sequel... next year! GAH! SO FAR AWAY!! Very much deserved 5 and all the stars to this one!!



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