Lila had plenty of blood on her hands, but as far as she knew, Alucard Emery had never ended a life. Perhaps that made him a good person. Or a bad pirate.
Would you look at that gorgeous cover?!
Set to release September 26th, The Fragile Threads of Power is the first book in a new fantasy series (Threads of Power) by Schwab set in the same universe as the deliciously enchanting Shades of Magic trilogy, with all its derring do. (Please be advised, there will be spoilers for that first trilogy below; I definitely recommend reading those before starting this book.)
Seven years after the events of A Conjuring of Light, Rhy Maresh is king with Alucard as his consort, but a rebellion to his rule has been building among the markets and pleasure gardens of Red London. Delilah Bard has been sailing around that same world, training Kell to be able to survive without the ability to call on the strong magic he once had at his bloody fingertips. White London has a new child queen dedicated to stoking the embers of magic Holland reintroduced to her dying world. And a fifteen year old tinkerer has a rare talent to not only see the threads of magic everywhere in the world, but to manipulate them.
It helped, having someone to talk to, even if that someone was more of a something and that something was technically dead.
In my opinion, this series is Schwab’s best writing to date. On the sentence-level, this story is just as wonderful as the others. I love the world of the multiple Londons, with all their magic (or lack thereof), color (or lackthereof), and adventures. The characters are top notch. My only problem with this book was the length. Schwab is an established enough author that she can get away with selling books this long-winded, but in this case that doesn’t mean it was a good idea. There was just so much extraneous set-up that, while possibly delightful, was unnecessary and slowed things down. I don’t think the inciting incident of the plot even happened until well after 100 pages.
Regardless, this was a good introduction to a new storyline in this world, and I certainly plan on reading what comes next. I’ll just hope that whatever that is comes in a more succinct, tighter package.
Much gratitude to Tor and Goodreads for the ARC!
Jessica Crawford 