Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1)
by Cassandra Clare
Book Description (from Amazon)
When sixteen-year-old Tessa Gray crosses the ocean to find her brother, her destination is England, the time is the reign of Queen Victoria, and something terrifying is waiting for her in London’s Downworld, where vampires, warlocks and other supernatural folk stalk the gaslit streets. Only the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the world of demons, keep order amidst the chaos.
Kidnapped by the mysterious Dark Sisters, members of a secret organization called The Pandemonium Club, Tessa soon learns that she herself is a Downworlder with a rare ability: the power to transform, at will, into another person. What’s more, the Magister, the shadowy figure who runs the Club, will stop at nothing to claim Tessa’s power for his own.
Friendless and hunted, Tessa takes refuge with the Shadowhunters of the London Institute, who swear to find her brother if she will use her power to help them. She soon finds herself fascinated by–and torn between–two best friends: James, whose fragile beauty hides a deadly secret, and blue-eyed Will, whose caustic wit and volatile moods keep everyone in his life at arm’s length…everyone, that is, but Tessa. As their search draws them deep into the heart of an arcane plot that threatens to destroy the Shadowhunters, Tessa realizes that she may need to choose between saving her brother and helping her new friends save the world…and that love may be the most dangerous magic of all.
Britney’s Book Review
Clockwork Angel is the first book in the Infernal Devices series and a prequel to the popular Mortal Instruments series. It introduces Tessa, a young girl leaving New York for Victorian England, in search of her older brother but instead finds a world full of creatures that go bump in the night and the sexy and exciting Shadowhunters who protect the lives of “mundanes,” or humans. Once Tessa has entered this world that has been under the surface of everything she once knew she is left to wonder, who can she truly trust? And just how much has her life been affected by it?
I fell in love with the world of Shadowhunters in Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series and was excited but a little nervous about a prequel to a series that I had devoured with relish. You know the feeling, when you love a world in a book and you’re apprehensive about anything trying to change the world you fell in love with? Well, Clockwork Angel made the rich world that was introduced and explored in the Mortal Instruments series into a world that has a deeper and darker past and is just as exciting as its predecessor. And it made me realize that I could equally love more than one view of the Shadowhunters and beings in Clare’s world.
It’s hard for me to find a book that I physically can not put down but Clockwork Angel does just that. I left the world of exams, assigned readings, essays, and demanding internships. I entered, and became transfixed, into Clare’s dark, mysterious, and exciting world again.
What makes it such a fun and worthy read is not only the fact that it is in a fantastical world full of demons, angels, vampires, fairies, warlocks, and other magical beings but because it’s about finding yourself and your own way. It’s about relationships and trying to decipher when you should put yourself out there and when you should keep your heart as far away from your sleeve as possible. It’s about being agirl in a world where being female is a human deficiency (which isn’t that far-off from how it still is but that’s another topic). It’s about life and taking risks and it’s all wrapped in a world full of characters that are real and make you wonder if Clare is showing us ignorant mundanes a glimpse into a hidden world.
If you have read and loved the Mortal Instruments series then you won’t be disappointed with Clockwork Angel. You see familiar names and places that don’t take away from MI but shows how Tessa enters into the history of what is to come.
If you haven’t read the Mortal Instruments, have no fear. The power of the Infernal Devices is that it’s written as a series of its own standing and you mustn’t have any prior knowledge to understand and fall in love with Tessa’s story.
It’s definitely a must read and I have to say that I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
Enjoy and let me know what you think. And let us know what books you have found interesting or you’d like us to review!