Table of Contents
Okay so. i went in blind(i like the thrill of not knowing what will happen next in a book- in real life if you don’t tell me what is happening i am definitely losing my mind- trust me)I picked this up expecting some standard fantasy magic stuff and instead I sucked into a world i was not expecting, and I would just like to formally announce that I was not prepared.
First of all- what is this book even about (no spoilers, don’t worry)
So there are FOUR Londons. Not one. FOUR. Stacked on top of each other, all wildly different, and only a few people can move between them. That alone is such a good concept — my brain kept doing this little “wait so if THIS happens here, what’s happening in the other three right now” thing every single time the world shifted.
Kell is one of the people who can travel between them. And can we talk about him for a second because-
Kell. The coat. Sir.
The orange hair. THE COAT. I don’t even know how to explain this without sounding unhinged but I was fully distracted by how this man looks on the page. The coat reverses into a different coat. He just. Flips it. And suddenly he’s a different person. I was mentally casting this in my head the entire book and I regret nothing.
He’s also deeply mysterious in that “I have secrets and also several bad habits” way, but in a very real sense. I have not met a character like him; he felt very real, and I was so here for it. Every time he showed up in a scene I sat up a little straighter, ready for whatever chaos was about to happen because of his terrible decision-making.
Lila, and her personal mission to make every wrong choice available to her
Lila. LILA. Every single time she had two options, one reasonable and one absolutely unhinged, she picked the unhinged one, and I just sat there like “of course. she chose that.” I was rooting for her and also deeply judged her decision making skills, constantly.
She’s the kind of character where you go “please don’t” right before she absolutely does, and somehow it works anyway, or it doesn’t, and either way you’re along for the ride. basically she is a headache in all sense of the meaning
Kell and Lila, and why I nearly threw the book across the room from sheer yearning
And then there’s whatever is happening between Kell and Lila, and I would like to file a formal complaint. The tension. THE TENSION. Every single time they’re in a scene together there’s this charged, crackling almost-something hanging in the air and I kept waiting, BEGGING, for one of them to just do something about it. They bicker, they distrust each other, they keep ending up pressed into the same tiny dangerous situations together, and every time I just sat there whispering “oh my god just KISS already” at my book like that was going to make it happen faster. It didn’t. I suffered. I would suffer again.
There’s something about the way he looks at her like she’s a problem he can’t stop being drawn to, and the way she looks at him like she hasn’t decided if she wants to rob him or run away with him, that had me clutching my chest at multiple points. Slow burn is one thing. This was slow burn with the flame turned up just enough to make me insane about it.
Rhy, the sweetheart with more going on than the easy smile lets on
And then there’s Rhy. Sweetheart, absolute sweetheart, carefree smile, the guy who makes a room feel lighter just by being in it — and then you sit with him for two more seconds and realize there are layers under all that ease.
The magicless boy in the most magical family, born a prince in the most magical world there is. The irony of that alone got me — heir to an empire built on power he doesn’t have, everyone around him wielding all this magic, and he’s just… not. I kept waiting for that to be a throwaway detail and instead it clearly sits under everything he does, quiet and unspoken, this crown he’s meant to wear one day in a world where he’s the one person without the thing that defines everyone else.
That carefree smile started feeling less like “this guy is the chillest character” and more like a really good performance of someone who’s decided not to let you see the insecurity underneath — which, when you’re a prince who’s supposed to have it all together, feels like the job description as much as the personality.
I wanted to know more about him by the end than I expected to going in. That’s a very specific kind of character trick and I fell for it completely.
The world, and how it just… changes on you
The whole four-Londons thing kept catching me off guard — you get comfortable in one version of the city and then suddenly you’re somewhere else and everything’s different, the rules are different, the vibe is different, and I loved that constant sense of “wait where even are we now.”
The mystery that had me suspicious of everyone
There’s this thread of mystery running under everything that had me side-eyeing basically every character at some point. Nobody felt fully safe to trust, which meant I was reading half the book slightly tense, waiting to find out who was actually up to something.
Holland
I need a whole separate paragraph for this because. Holland. There’s an ache to him that I wasn’t expecting and honestly still haven’t recovered from. I can’t even fully articulate why he got to me the way he did — just, something about him made me want to know more, made me worried for him, made me sad in a way I didn’t see coming from a fantasy book. Sir, I have concerns about you and no way to express them properly.
Should you read A Darker Shade of Magic?
If you want a gorgeous, mysterious man in an even more gorgeous coat, a girl who will make every bad decision available to her, a sweetheart of a prince hiding more than he shows, a world that keeps shifting under your feet, and a character who will make you ache without warning — yes. Obviously yes.
Where to get it
If you’re ready to fall for a coat before you fall for the man in it, you can grab A Darker Shade of Magic here — A Darker Shade of Magic- Book 1.
Vibe Check
Mood: Mysterious, magnetic, devastatingly well-dressed.
Effort level: Low — you’ll be hooked before you’ve even figured out how many Londons there ar
Side effects: Sudden interest in reversible coats, unexplained protectiveness over a man named Holland, a soft spot for a prince who’s got more going on than he lets on, and zero patience for Lila’s terrible decisions (affectionately).
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