It has been over a year since I read The Dark Artifices Trilogy by Cassandra Clare, but I wanted to hold off on writing this review because I wanted to get through the original series first. That took longer than expected with the seven-month break between reading the fifth and sixth books. Now that The Mortal Instruments books are all read and I have made my series review of it, which you can read here, it’s time to make my trilogy review for The Dark Artifices.

Lady Midnight is an incredible book with rich, unique characters, fantastic interactions, engaging action and a few romance threads sewn throughout. It is the perfect balance of character-driven and plot-driven, allowing the characters to stand out and be more than just names on a page without halting the pace and trajectory of the story. The description is vivid and the authenticity of the story world is believable, making this one of the best books in the shadowhunter chronicles.

Lord of Shadows packs just as hard a punch with the emotional elements of this book, not to mention the high tension and high stakes that make rooting for these characters a visceral requirement. You can’t just sit there and read – you are invested in this story with no choice but to sign your heart over as payment. The exploration of new landscapes and situations is handled brilliantly and the inclusion of beloved characters from earlier books helps this feel like a real inclusion into the shadowhunter chronicles. We get deeper character relationships, more skin in the game with the kids in the middle of all this, and then we get that ending. The ending of Lord of Shadow will forever remain one of the best endings to a YA fantasy novel I have ever read, especially for the second book in a trilogy.

Queen of Air and Darkness is an immense conclusion to a large trilogy. If your heart wasn’t ripped out of your chest in Lord of Shadows then it certainly was in Queen of Air and Darkness thanks to either Jules or Ty (curse the Blackthorn boys for having hearts of gold). The action in this book is a lot but it’s made palatable by the fact that this is the final book in the trilogy. There is so much that happens between characters, so many interactions and emotionally charged bits of dialogue and plot, and the threads left untied for the next trilogy with Ty, Kit and Dru give us so much anticipation and eagerness. I cannot wait to see what happens with them, but I will be going through it based on the titles of the books and the fact it will be the last of the shadowhunter chronicles and the end to this expansive fantasy world.

I think The Dark Artifices trilogy is one of my favourites in the shadowhunter chronicles, currently sitting in second place behind The Infernal Devices (it couldn’t shift that beautiful trilogy from first if it tried). It is better than the original series, as The Mortal Instruments is weaker by comparison, especially with its half-baked beginning. While I will be rereading The Infernal Devices for reviewing in the next few months, it might be a while before I get around to rereading The Last Hours Trilogy, which will be contending with The Dark Artifices for second place.