Title: A Darker Shade of Magic
Author: V. E. Schwab
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction, Adventurous
Pages: 413
Publication Date: 24 Feb 2015
StoryGraph* Moods: Adventurous, Mysterious, Dark
How I Stumbled Upon This Book: Book Club
Other Books by this author: There are many – the others in this specific series are A Gathering of Shadows, A Conjuring of Light, and The Fragile Threads of Power.
*StoryGraph also offers content warnings.
Description: Imagine there are four versions of the world. Now imagine that you are one of the rare folks who can still travel between them. Well, you don’t have to imagine – Schwab did that for you. In this instance, there are four Londons – Red, Grey, White, and Black (though that last one is inaccessible even to Kell).
Kell is a smuggler, taking people’s money to bring things from the other worlds, which is going ok. Sort of.
Enter Delilah Bard. Who robs him. Then saves him. Then begs him to take her to another one of those worlds.
The story is filled with magic and treachery and tension.
Why I recommend this book: It’s beautifully written. The world building is superb. And the story demanded I not put the pages down. When I joined a SciFi/Fantasy book club, I hadn’t taken into account that most of this genre involves lengthy series [facepalm]. This is one of two (in as many years of attending) that I opted to continue the series. It’s not that the others were bad – just that if I read every series we started in this club, I’d never read anything else. Or Sleep. So I’ve been picky. In this case, I immediately bought the trilogy (and the fourth came out shortly after).
“I’m not going to die,” she said. “Not till I’ve seen it.”
“Seen what?”
Her smile widened. “Everything.”“I apologize for anything I might have done. I was not myself.”
“I apologize for shooting you in the leg.” said Lila. “I was myself entirely.”
~ V.E. Schwab, A Darker Shade of Magic
Ami Maxine 