Moonlighting with Lady Midnight
Sometimes an author creates an amazing world that is capable of hosting multiple series, like Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels or Charles de Lint's Newford. Cassandra Clare was fairly successful in connecting her first series, The Mortal Instruments, with its semi-prequel series The Infernal Devices - was she able to continue the expansion with Lady Midnight, The Dark Artifices book one?
In a Sentence: Boy and Girl hide secrets from each other, end up just messing everything up.
SPOILER WARNING! This book takes place after the events of both the Infernal Devices series and the Mortal Instruments series. Also, I will go into some lore detail so YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! Otherwise, gentle spoilers - I wanted to leave most of the mystery intact.
Summary: Emma has been searching for her parent's murderer since the end of the War, but recently more bodies have been found carrying the same markings has her parents. The Clave tells Emma to forget about it, that Sebastian Morgenstern murdered her parents, but the Faeries and Emma feel otherwise. Mark Blackthorn is returned to his family to aid in the inquisition, and is only allowed to stay should Emma, her parabatai Julian, and Mark find the murderer and turn him over to the Unseelie Court. Lots of fighting and witty remarks later, Emma and Julian realize that they are in love with each other, which is directly against Shadowhunter law (because they're parabatai). In the end, Emma decides to sacrifice her love to save Julian's life and decides instead to break his heart.
Corresponding Song: Immortals by Fall Out Boy
Thoughts: I have to admit, I love Cassandra Clare. Now, I know that she's had some plagiarism problems (the Kenyon v. Clare suit is going to be interesting), but she does have a talent for dialogue, which as you know is my favorite part of a book. The first three Mortal Instruments books had me rolling, and while the second trilogy was a bit of a disappointment the Infernal Devices series is only of my favorite stories (in fact, I often suggest that people read Infernal Devices before Mortal Instruments, or just to read Infernal Devices. Will Herondale is a BEAST.)
Lady Midnight, like the second Mortal Instruments trilogy (City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls and City of Heavenly Fire) fell flat for me. Oh, there's all the usual action and adventure, sure, and it did have a nice plot twist concerning the antagonist (not going to spoil that), but some major lore questions came up for me which didn't make much sense. Let's take a look:
Issue one: When Julian and Emma go to check out the house of the first murder victim, they are glamoured but people can still see them - they just look to be normal teens rather than decked-out Shadowhunters. The only reason this really irritated me was because one of the BIG things in the Mortal Instruments was that Clary surprised Jace by being able to see through his glamour. Why have the glamour standards fallen? Emma is supposed to be the next Jace - a bad ass Shadowhunter who does what she wants. Why not go full glamour, especially when investigating a murdered person's house? It's never explained. This issue happens again when Emma and Cristina go after the half-werewolf in the bar - they're noticed by one of the bartenders in the back room and are forced to knock him out and tie him up. WHY? Why, if you know there are going to be people around, are you NOT FULLY GLAMOURED?? Again, no reason is given. This really, really bothered me because it's just sloppy storytelling. There are portions of the book where Emma is fully glamoured, so this is really confusing. Consistency is important, especially when you are writing in a continuous universe.
Issue two: Arthur Blackthorn. I think my problems with Clare's use of Arthur is that she doesn't give him dignity or a purpose in the story aside from a random dramatic sub-plot - a sub-plot which is not needed in the face of everything else going on. All of Clare's books tend to be over-dramatic but this one was by far the most heavy-handed. You really only need one good plot line and maybe a sub-plot or two - Lady Midnight had at least four, and not one was fully developed. The whole Arthur Blackthorn mental-illness subplot was just not necessary and really strained my tolerance.
Issue three: The Lady Midnight story. The story of Lady Midnight was in a children's book and related back to the relationship between a warlock and a Shadowhunter. This story is what ties The Infernal Devices to this new series (aside from Tessa and Jem being relatives, but I'm not going to get into that), yet it's only brought up fairly late in the book and not really examined. Most of this book is based on people keeping secrets (for no reason), but you'd think that since Lady Midnight's story was popular enough to be published in a book of children's tales that someone besides the youngest member of the bunch would have remembered it. Also, Magnus, you let me down on this one.
Issue four: This is the big one - forbidden parabatai love. Now, the whole you-can't-be-in-a-romantic-relationship-with-your-parabatai thing does make some sense, even without the nasty side effects that apparently come with it. I have one question though: Why is this issue only addressed now?
In City of Bones, Clary realizes that Alec is in love with Jace even though Alec is Jace's parabatai. I mean like, Alec was IN LOVE with Jace and Magnus brought him out of it. Alec never seemed concerned with the whole marks-removed-exiled-from-Shadowhunter-society thing. What would have happened had Jace returned Alec's feelings?
Also, while I know it shouldn't be surprising, I don't understand why there isn't a Shadownhunter ritual to amicably dissolve a parabatai pairing. People change - what if a parabatai pair end up hating each other's guts after twenty years? Amicable separation, to me, seems much more reasonable that exiling two parabatai who fall in love - rather than lose two warriors, you dissolve the bond, let them get together to make more little Shadowhunters, and possibly create a better team. No one, at any point, suggests even thinking of something like this. A birth control rune? Great. Amicable parabatai separation that would resolve all parabatai incompatibility/love issues? Nah, no way. I really did like Julian, so this whole sub-plot kind of pissed me off.
FINAL THOUGHTS: This was a decent read, and Clare has continued the story in a fairly entertaining form. I wasn't able to connect as much to these characters, though, because of the inconsistencies mentioned above. If you like TMI or TID, you'll probably like Lady Midnight, but I wouldn't suggest it for someone new to the series. The twist ending was actually very good and Clare did a great job of laying false trails into who the murderer turned out to be. I'll continue to read the Dark Artifices just to see where it goes, but I'll keep my expectations pretty low. Overall, just read The Infernal Devices series - it's the best!