1) Son of the Dawn ★★★
2) Cast Long Shadows ★★
3) Every Exquisite Thing ★★★★★
4) Learn About Loss ★★
5) A Deeper Love ★★★★
6) The Wicked Ones ★★★★
7) The Land I Lost ★★★★★
8) Through Blood, Through Fire ★★★★
9) The Lost World ★★★★
10) Forever Fallen ★★★★½

content warnings: violence, murder, references to homophobia, bigotry
representation: british-chinese main character, mexican aro/ace side character, biracial (japanese-chinese) side character, gay side character


“All of these people were struggling not to feel, trying to freeze their hearts inside their chests until the cold fractured and broke them. While Jem would have given every cold tomorrow he had for one more day with a warm heart, to love them as he once had.”


Queen of Air and Darkness comes out in a week(!!!!) so I'm going to binge as many of these unread ones as I can. Son of the Dawn is about Jace arriving in New York from Idris on a boat where werewolves are attempting to smuggle some yin-fen. Lily and Raphael recruit Jem to help them convince the Lightwoods to help them apprehend the werewolves and ensure that none of the drug gets released into the black market.

Plot-wise, this honestly did nothing for me, hence the three stars. It was interesting enough, but it was the characters that really saved it for me. Jem is his usual perfect, smol bean self, even when slicing and dicing drug-dealing werewolves. Him constantly remembering Will and Tessa made me super emo, and I nearly cried when he was talking about parabatai and the W.H. initials on his staff.

Little Izzy, Alec and Jace (yes, even Jace) were a complete delight, in particular Alec just Losing His Mind every time a pretty boy paid attention to him bc Mood. I also loved seeing the family dynamics with Jace already start to unfold, with Maryse mothering him, Izzy being super competitive, Alec being half in love, Max adoring him, and Robert being a well-meaning dick.

Holy god, I love Lily and Raphael so much. The jazz baby and greaser team are the new best duo in the entire Shadowhunter world and I want a full-length novel of their escapades throughout the decades (look, I've already come up with a title!). Raphael pretending to not care but then fist-bumping Ragnor and taking a blow to save Lily, and him just being so done with romance and love. Lily coming up with the most ridiculous names to call Jem, a few personal favourites being Brother Hop-in-the-sack-ariah and Brother Zacharide-him-like-a-bad-pony (not having Brother Snackariah was a missed opportunity, btw), while also caring so much about Raphael and trying to make sure that he's okay. They're both icons who deserve the world.

If you love these characters, then you'll definitely get a level of enjoyment out of this; how much depends mostly on how much you like the characters and how much the plot grabs you.