A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1) in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Feb 08, 2019 Sarah rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, euro-fiction, uk

This was such a fun story. The book follows Kell (Ansari = possessor of magical power) and Lila (regular human) as they meet and try to fix something that has gone wrong in the various Londons (Red, White, Grey) Kell crosses in his daily life. Both Kell and Lila are fun characters, and the magic is well-written. I'm not such a fan of stories of overt magic (I like my magic to be a bit more subtle, usually), but this book was an exception.

One drawback: I was trying to read this in a hurry for bo ...more

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May 26, 2018 Loretta rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi-and-fantasy, audiobooks

RE-READ in 2023: heh, interesting to see my first review. Schwab has a new book set in this world and I decided to re-read this series because I was looking for something non-demanding but fun to listen to. This fit the bill, and since I did go on and finish books 2 and 3, I feel like I should give a more generous addendum to this review- it's worth finishing the series, I feel.

This started off really good - interesting worlds, I liked both Kell and Lilah, but about halfway through I just sort ...more

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Feb 27, 2019 Dana Berglund rated it liked it

Shelves: books-for-grown-ups

Doors between alternative versions of our world (or at least London), red magic and dark magic, a wanna-be pirate/thief, royalty and pageantry. There's a beautiful amount of world building, and interesting characters, and lots of action, but I still didn't LOVE it. I appreciate the genius imagination and the details, and I did love Lilah, our pirate/thief from the mundane London, but something was missing to make me love Kell, our magical main character. He seemed too old for his 21 years; I kno ...more

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Dec 11, 2022 Jaime rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: around-the-year-2022, read-2022, ya-fantasy, fantasy-historical, alternate-history, united-kingdom, scrambled-author-2022, popsugar-2022

This is the story of not one, but four Londons, and the magician who can travel between them. I thought it was a unique and well-thought out world, and I really enjoyed the characters of Kell and Delilah. Delilah in particular was a great character, smart and strong and unafraid of the unknown. On the other hand, you know from the beginning that Kell has things to hide and you wonder if you're getting the entire picture. The book is written in a way that you can picture it in your mind, despite ...more

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