A Gathering of Shadows Review

This week's book is A Gathering of Shadows, the sequel to A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab.   It's going to be hard to talk about this one without spoiling the last one, so consider this your warning for spoilers.

Kell, our world hopping magician, is dealing with the fallout of his actions in the last book.  He's lost the king and queen's trust to the point where they have him under house arrest, followed by guards except when doing his official world-hopping duties.  He's restless and angry, and it's unclear if this is due to his confinement, his new bond with Rhy, or the after effects of his use of the black stone.  Rhy becomes a larger character, as he deals with his guilt and frustration over his bond with Kell and his residual fear over the fact that he died and now owes his life to Kell.  They decide they need to blow off steam and secretly enter Kell in the Element Games, a grand international magic contest. 

Meanwhile Lila has joined a crew of privateers captained by the suave, swashbuckling, and ridiculously named Alucard.  They return to London because Alucard is a contestant in the games, and Lila steals the identity of another contestant so she can join in as well. 

This kept the momentum of the first book, despite being the second book in a trilogy.  It didn't face the sophomore slump, and the added world building held together, expanding and enriching what we knew from the first book rather than pushing it into the realm of unbelievable.  The side characters were equally expanded and enriched without taking away from our old friends Kell and Lila.  I was especially taken with Rhy's development, Alucard's layers, and their surprisingly healthy relationship.

At the center of this book is the Element Games, a tournament where magicians face off in duels with the winner advancing to the next round.  But the games didn't start until two thirds of the way through the book, and the duels themselves were abbreviated or shown from the point of view of a non-combatant.  The lack of magical fight scenes disappointed me much less than I would have expected, because the real heart of the story isn't in who faces off against who and all the spectacular tricks they use while doing so.  The heart of the story is in how the games affect the characters, how and why they enter the tournament, and how they deal with secret identities outside the ring.

A side story about White London is sprinkled through the book.  It was isolated from the rest of the story, but Schwab had built my trust in the previous book that all the story lines would all come together in the end.  It did come together, but in a way that marked the end of one book and the beginning of another, hopefully carrying the series' momentum into the last installment.

This series is coming through as a solid trilogy.

***

Next week: magical realism with The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton