Chain of Gold Book Review
From Goodreads: An inheritance of shadows. A love in chains. An unconquerable foe.
Cordelia Carstairs is a Shadowhunter, a warrior trained since childhood to battle demons. When her father is accused of a terrible crime, she and her brother travel to London in hopes of preventing the family’s ruin. Cordelia’s mother wants to marry her off, but Cordelia is determined to be a hero rather than a bride. Soon Cordelia encounters childhood friends James and Lucie Herondale and is drawn into their world of glittering ballrooms, secret assignations, and supernatural salons, where vampires and warlocks mingle with mermaids and magicians. All the while, she must hide her secret love for James, who is sworn to marry someone else.
But Cordelia’s new life is blown apart when a shocking series of demon attacks devastate London. These monsters are nothing like those Shadowhunters have fought before—these demons walk in daylight, strike down the unwary with incurable poison, and seem impossible to kill. London is immediately quarantined. Trapped in the city, Cordelia’s friends discover that a dark legacy has gifted them with incredible powers—and forced a brutal choice that will reveal the true cruel price of being a hero.
Okay, so quick confession: this isn’t my first time reading Chain of Gold. I actually first picked it up back when it released, since I opted for the fancy Illumicrate clothbound edition. But now I’m awaiting the final book from them, so I figured I’d re-read the series to remind myself of everything.
I had initially told myself I was done with Shadowhunter books. Back when I was a teen in my Twilight throes, I loved the Mortal Instruments trilogy (or at least I loved it while it was still a trilogy). The Infernal Devices is still my firm favourite, and I was briefly enamoured with The Dark Artifices, but the ending of that trilogy was so stupendously annoying to me that I decided I was probably done reading spin-offs. There’s also just too many of them. I love the novels, don’t get me wrong, but I doubt I’m the first person to say that there’s a lot of them, and they’re not particularly original. Okay, I feel a bit mean saying that, but you probably know what I mean. You pick up a Cassandra Clare book because you know exactly what you’re getting- a lot of angsty romance, fight scenes, and drama.
The Infernal Devices series is possibly my favourite because it works so well with Cassie’s writing style. She began her career as a fanfic author, and while there’s a whole bunch of drama surrounding that, it is something she’s good at. The historical settings vibe pretty well with the fanfic-esque writing style, lending it something of a Pride and Prejudice or Bridgerton air. That’s why I decided to give Chain of Gold a chance. Thankfully, it doesn’t require you to read all of the 1001 Shadowhunter books that are out there, and you can completely skip The Mortal Instruments and Dark Artifices to pick it up, although I strongly recommend reading The Infernal Devices beforehand, since it includes a lot of the characters and is a sequel, so there’s a bunch of spoilers there if you haven’t read them yet.
Chain of Gold didn’t get off to a good start for me. I was hesitant enough picking it up, given my long-lasting grudge against Queen of Air and Darkness. Because Cassie writes so many Shadowhunter books now, there’s a bunch of worldbuilding and lore there, which is great, but oh my goodness it is delivered to the reader in the most boring way possible. The start of Chain of Gold is so slow because it feels like the author is telling you every little detail about the story, from what kind of weapons everyone uses, the history of Shadowhunters, the ways in which all the families link together, the events from The Infernal Devices, the history of Shadowhunter and Downworlder relations… everything. I appreciate there’s a lot to get through and it is a chonky book, so sometimes being told something rather than shown is a relief, but the start of the novel is so heavy in these asides that it plods. Again, this feels very reminiscent of fan-fiction, or at least the type that likes to cram all the knowledge of the world into one chapter to tell you all about it. And while I do like the fanfiction aspects of Cassie’s writing for the most part, this had me almost putting down the book.
Eventually, it starts to pick up the pace a bit. The plot alludes to Dickens’ Great Expectations a lot, what with Tatiana Blackthorn plotting revenge, stopping all the clocks in her house at the moment of her husband’s death, and allowing her house to fall to ruin. All she needed was a wedding dress, and she’d be the perfect Mrs Havisham. It’s another trademark of Cassie’s writing to lean heavily on inspiration from the classics, and to be honest I kind of like the nods to novels I haven’t read in a while. It’s also not exactly the same, especially given that there’s ghosts and dark magic thrown into the mix, so the plot diverges pretty heavily in places!
I did love the characters. Matthew and his penchant for Oscar Wilde, Anna and her love of wild salons, Christopher’s habit of making things explode, and Lucie’s pithy stories about James the Terrible Prince… there’s a lot to appreciate here, and I think one of the things Clare always does well are characters. There are clear arcs throughout the novel, and everyone has a distinct personality and backstory which makes it easier to understand them, even if some of those characters are the antagonists. There are no bad guys who just want to be bad, and there’s plenty of sympathy to be found for the villains. It was also just heart-warming to see some of my faves from The Infernal Devices back again. I won’t say who, because that’s very clear spoiler territory for the trilogy, but it did my heart wonders!
As much as I love the characters, it’s the heart-wrenching angst in the romances that makes me give in and keep reading Shadowhunter books, and here we get that in spades. There’s a bunch of stuff going on here, and some delightfully delicious romantic tension hanging heavy in the air right from the start. While I’m not a big fan of star-crossed love or love triangles in YA, since it was kind of overdone years ago, there’s just something about the way that Cassie writes it that makes me unwilling to hate it here. Again, I won’t go into it much because that’s spoiler territory, but my heart heart so much from wanting throughout this novel, and even though I know it will all work out perfectly at the end of book three, I just need all the kissing scenes and things to recover. Again, I can’t stress enough how closely this feels to fanfic, from the yearning looks traded back and forth, to the overwrought kiss scenes, to the big event that happens close to the end of the novel. Seriously, this series should come with a fanfic romance tropes bingo card, because a loooot of these are getting ticked off the list here. Again, I can’t complain. It’s a bit like eating cookies. I keep craving the sugar rush even though I know it isn’t always good for me.
Overall, I’m giving Chain of Gold:
It was very slow to start with, and I really really didn’t appreciate the clunky attempts to relay the worldbuilding and everything in the first few chapters, but once it got going, I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly I fell into loving this novel. If you’re looking for some sweet, sweet angsty romance, I strongly recommend Chain of Gold. Just make sure to read The Infernal Devices trilogy first, so you’re not spoiled!
So yup, that’s going to do it for me today. I will post again soon, since I just finished reading Chain of Iron over the last few days
Has anyone else read this book or plans to? What do you think about it? Let me know by joining in the discussion in the comments section down below! <3
