A Conjuring of Light by V. E. Schwab Series: Shades of Magic #3
Published by Macmillan ISBN: 9780765387486
on February 21, 2017
Genres: Fantasy, Historical, Action & Adventure
Pages: 402
Source: Purchased
My rating:
Check it out in Goodreads
Synopsis
As darkness sweeps the Maresh Empire, the once precarious balance of power among the four Londons has reached its breaking point.
In the wake of tragedy, Kell—once assumed to be the last surviving Antari—begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. Lila Bard, once a commonplace—but never common—thief, has survived and flourished through a series of magical trials. But now she must learn to control the magic, before it bleeds her dry.
An ancient enemy returns to claim a city while a fallen hero tries to save a kingdom in decay. Meanwhile, the disgraced Captain Alucard Emery of the Night Spire collects his crew, attempting a race against time to acquire the impossible.
If you read my review of the previous book, you’ll know that it fell a little short for me pacing-wise. It became hard for me to make progress since I felt that nothing was really happening. I recognize that a lot of that slow work at first was necessary, but it was still painful. However, in the end, things picked up and, the story didn’t let up from then on.
A Conjuring of Light builds on that same energy because it picks up right where the other ended. I really don’t want to imagine how it was like for the bookworms who had to wait for this last book to come out.
As of writing this post, I finished this book about ten minutes ago and I’m very, very happy with it.
Masterful use of POV
You know what I’ve been noticing with this author’s writing? She loves switching between POVs. And she nails it. In Vicious she even jumps back and forth between timelines, and she still pulls it off. I just wanted to point this out because that kind of shit takes a lot of intentionality and forethought.
Of course we have Kell, Lila, Rhy and well, the bad guy too, because why not? But we have other smaller roles that we hop to to get a glimpse of the bigger picture. In some books this kind of thing sometimes can be annoying because the don’t bring anything important to the table. But for Schwab’s stories this technique is kind of necessary, or it just wouldn’t feel the same way. It wouldn’t have the same mystical, all-encompassing effect.
The perfect ending
I appreciate the fact that there enough pages to give us some closure for all the characters involved. I wouldn’t say it was an entirely happy ending -wasn’t expecting anyway. There was a lot of pain and darkness involved. Bittersweet would be more accurate, but not exactly either, because I’m good with it. So I’ll just go with perfect again.
Often we shy away from series that sound too ominous because there are two options for the endings. Everyone rides off into the sunset with their happy ending, or it just ends disastrously and it’s not satisfying at all. This one hits all the right notes, so the adventure has been completely worth it.
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I really can’t say anything I haven’t said before so I’d just greatly encourage you to give these books a chance if you haven’t already!
What’s a book you have read that has the perfect ending, in your opinion?
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