eBook Review - Son Of The Dawn

A mini-review of sorts from when I was on holiday in Cyprus (yes, am still on that! I don't want to overwhelm you with write-ups this month. Next month might be a different thing but am easing you in!). This came as a surprise from the lovely John from Walker. A few months back at the #WalkerYA Blogger Event (write-up here if you missed it), Walker announced that they will be publishing the Ghosts of The Shadow Market, an anthology set in Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunters world. I remember going "Oooh" over this and didn't think anything much from it till just before my Cyprus holiday when John emailed, asking if I wanted to read this. I went yes and, when I was on holiday, I got a iBook code for this and, once I got myself on wifi, I download this and read this as quickly as I could.

Quick background dump. This will be published in the same way as The Bane Chronicles and Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy. A novella will be published in ebook form, once a month. All the novellas, plus two unpublished novellas will be published in one collection, sometime in 2019. And, like before, Cassandra Clare is co-writing this with a mix of authors: Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson, Robin Wasserman and Kelly Link. And with connections to all of Shadowhunter series - Mortal Instruments, Infernal Devices, Dark Artifices and Last Hours, though the series follows Brother Zachariah throughout the years as he visits the Shadow Markets round the world, trying to find a mystery item...

The first novella in this collection is Son of the Dawn. Set several years prior to the events of The Mortal Instruments, the Lightwoods of the New York Institute is expecting a new member to join their family: Jace Wayland. But when Silent Brother, Brother Zachariah, is in the Shadow Market, he meets vampire Raphael, he hears something that throws ghosts from the past into the danger of the present...

I like the Shadowhunter world. I'm not as up to date with the world compared to other Shadowhunter fans (I haven't read the latter three Mortal Instruments books [out of fear/me thinking those characters's stories are done for me] nor have I read Lord of Shadows. Not yet but hopefully will read before Queen of Air and Darkness is published at the end of the year), and this was a nice story to read. I read it in two sittings (the first before I went to bed and the second when I woke up the following morning). It felt like returning to an old friend. Fans for Jem, Jace, Alec and Isabelle will enjoy this nugget of what their lives was like the years before City of Bones.

The little jem that I enjoyed hugely was the bonus material, Not for Humans, written by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black. It's only a few page longs and set a few days prior to City of Bones but I devoured this and just wanted more. If this is what Holly and Cassandra writing together is like, I need to get my rear in gear and read their co-author series, Magisterium.

But I had a niggle with this. Maybe it's me, but as I was reading this, I couldn't get away from the feeling that this didn't feel like Cassandra Clare writing, but this was Sarah Rees Brennan. I understand this is a co-authored story, but it feels a bit like Cursed Child in a sense where these are the characters created by the main author, yet someone else is using them and it feels off. I think I have this problem in the past when Sarah Rees Brennan co-writing a Shadowhunter novella. I think it's her writing and I don't click with it. It's not her problem, it's mine.

For fans of the Shadowhunter world, you will enjoy this. And I hope to read the next novella in the series, Cast Long Shadows, when that comes out next month...