With the help of the handsome, self-destructive Will and the fiercely devoted Jem, Tessa discovers that the Magister's war on the Shadowhunters is deeply personal. He blames them for a long-ago tragedy that shattered his life. To unravel the secrets of the past, the trio journeys from mist-shrouded Yorkshire to a manor house that holds untold horrors, from the slums of London to an enchanted ballroom where Tessa discovers that the truth of her parentage is more sinister than she had imagined. When they encounter a clockwork demon bearing a warning for Will, they realize that the Magister himself knows their every move and that one of their own has betrayed them.
Tessa finds her heart drawn more and more to Jem, though her longing for Will, despite his dark moods, continues to unsettle her. But something is changing in Will; the wall he has built around himself is crumbling. Could finding the Magister free Will from his secrets and give Tessa the answers about who she is and what she was born to do?
As their dangerous search for the Magister and the truth leads the friends into peril, Tessa learns that when love and lies are mixed, they can corrupt even the purest heart.
I flat-out love this series!! I really loved the modern-day books as well (I still have to read The City of Fallen Angels, but will get to that when I get home), but the Victorian Era does have a certain appeal :) As always, though, it takes me a chapter or two to really sink into these stories. It's not that I don't enjoy the openings, but I always seem to need an extra bit of time to fall into them. Then I stay up very late reading them. Ahh, and there was lots of good kissing scenes in this book. Lots and lots. And Claire knows how to write kissings scenes... Okay, yeah. I found myself actually studying them to amp up the tension in my own WIP (and was glad hubby didn't find me doing that--he'd really of thought I'd gone around the bend). At any rate, these are a must-read in the YA category, imho!
Have you read any of Claire's work? Did you enjoy it?
