Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1) by Cassandra Clare

In a kingdom by the sea…

In a secret world where half-angel warriors are sworn to fight demons, parabatai is a sacred word.

A parabatai is your partner in battle. A parabatai is your best friend. Parabatai can be everything to each other—but they can never fall in love.

Emma Carstairs is a warrior, a Shadowhunter, and the best in her generation. She lives for battle. Shoulder to shoulder with her parabatai, Julian Blackthorn, she patrols the streets of Los Angeles, where vampires party on the Sunset Strip, and faeries—the most powerful of supernatural creatures—teeter on the edge of open war with Shadowhunters. When the bodies of humans and faeries turn up murdered in the same way Emma’s parents were when she was a child, an uneasy alliance is formed. This is Emma’s chance for revenge—and Julian’s chance to get back his brother Mark, who is being held prisoner by the faerie Courts. All Emma, Mark, and Julian have to do is solve the murders within two weeks…and before the murderer targets them.

Their search takes Emma from sea caves full of sorcery to a dark lottery where death is dispensed. And each clue she unravels uncovers more secrets. What has Julian been hiding from her all these years? Why does Shadowhunter Law forbid parabatai to fall in love? Who really killed her parents—and can she bear to know the truth?

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Cassandra Clare knocks it out of the park with her latest Shadowhunter spinoff series, The Dark Artifices. This series is centered around the Los Angeles Institute and the two young Shadowhunters, Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn, that were introduced to us at the end of the Mortal Instruments series. Book one in the series, Lady Midnight, is full of everything that makes Clare’s novels special - adventure, lovable characters, mystery, magic, drama, and a little bit of romance. We even get to check in with some old friends from the previous series, which I loved. I felt like these characters, perhaps because they have already experienced such adversity, added a new level of maturity to the story which helps set this series apart from the others. I’m excited to see where Clare takes the story from here. Can’t wait for the next one!

2016 Reading Challenge: A book that's more than 600 pages