Hey Everyone, Happy Monday or is it Tuesday…. Thursday??

Whatever day it is today I hope you and your loved ones are all safe and sound at home, eating chocolate and finally reading that book you have always meant to.

Or making a start on the to be read pile.

Or ignoring the book you always meant to read and the TBR pile and are reading an old favourite for the hundredth time.

Today’s update is very heavy on the Cassandra Clare, well she has a new book out which therefore means I need to read lots of other Shadowhunters based fiction…

A Long Conversation (Shadowhunter Chronicles) by Cassandra Clare – ‘aww’ – this is basically my whole reaction to this story, it’s the OG Shadowhunters aka the New York Institute and there is an engagement party! I am all smiles and fangirling just typing it. This is an eBook short story to bring the folks from The Mortal Instruments in to The Dark Artifices. A must read if you are a Shadowhunters fan!


Son of the Dawn (Ghosts of the Shadow Market #1) by Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan
Every Exquisite Thing (Ghosts of the Shadow Market #3) by Cassandra Clare and Maureen Johnson
Cast Long Shadows (Ghosts of the Shadow Market #2) by Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan
Learn about Loss (Ghosts of the Shadow Market #4) by Cassandra Clare and Kelly Link
A Deeper Love (Ghosts of the Shadow Market #5) by Cassandra Clare and Maureen Johnson
The Wicked Ones (Ghosts of the Shadow Market #6) by Cassandra Clare and Robin Wasserman.
I am grouping all these together as they are all found in the collected works of Cassandra Clare and friends in ‘Ghosts Of The Shadow Market’.

Each short story involves a different tale of a shadow market around the world and throughout history –but they all have a common link running through them, Jem Carstairs or as he is now known, Brother Zachariah (or Snackaria as one young vampire calls him, actual lols at that). These stories all continue to further build the rich and varied world of the  Shadowhunters series, filling in blanks and offering insight into some of the much loved characters such as Tessa Grey after Will’s passing in Second World War London or Jace Wayland arriving in New York prior to meeting the Lightwoods.

All of the stories link back to the Shadow Markets and Jem, I believe these are the stories of the missing Herondale and the history of Kit from the Dark Artifices, I have four of the short stories left to go, but I am also hoping that we FINALLY  find out how Brother Zachariah becomes Jem Carstairs again. Is this finally ” Another story of Lightwoods and Herondales and Fairchilds” that Jem teases at the end of Clockwork Princess?
The eagle eyed amongst you might note that I am counting these as individual stories even though they are all contained in the same book – before they were published each story was an e-book available for purchase on kindle (much like tales from the shadow hunter academy was), as I had auto-purchase turned on for this series I have each story twice, once on my kindle and then again in the collected book…. I just never got around to reading them. As I have them all individually then I am counting them as individual reads.


The Stars We Steal by Alexa Donne
Jane Austen meets The Lunar Chronicles! Well not exactly the Lunar Chronicles, but I did find myself thinking of The Lunar Chronicles a lot while reading this. Let’s just say it’s Jane Austen in Space! I didn’t realise when I first bought this book that it was based on Jane Austen’s Persuasion that was just a nice surprise. I saw this advertised on Instagram and the advertisement worked as I ended up buying it two days later. I enjoyed this book – the twist at the end wasn’t too twisty and out there that I had suspected what was going on, the only thing was I felt at times that the Jane Austen Persuasion element of it was a tad forced. I ended up thinking did the author write this with Persuasion in mind, or did it originally go this way and maybe the names were changed and a few details tweaked to add more of Persuasion in at a later date?

There we have it, seven short stories and one actual book. Thankfully the short stories meant that I got back on track for my reading goal, which is excellent as the next update features some massive books.

Happy Reading

Kate

xoxo