Happy birthday to me and my fellow July babies!! This month I made you pick from my to-be-read stack and I’m so pleased with your choice . . .
A Darker Shade of Magic (2015)
Written by: V.E. Schwab
Discussion date: 7/26/19
Premise:
Kell is one of the last Antari — magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.
Kell was raised in Arnes — Red London — and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.
Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see. It’s a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.
After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.
Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they’ll first need to stay alive.
As we did last year, in August we’re going to celebrate back to school. Celebrate? That seems like a mean word, but I graduated college 16 years ago and I’m not feeling particularly bad about it. Please pick between these three novels about magical colleges!
[…] the winner of the July poll for the Book Club: V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic! Lastly, we’re still running the poll for our next August pick, and it’s pretty close so far! Lev Grossman’s The […]
[…] the winner of the July poll for the Book Club: V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic! Lastly, we’re still running the poll for our next August pick, and it’s pretty close so far! Lev Grossman’s The Magicians […]
[…] How’s the reading coming along? You chose V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic, and with a fantasy so engrossing, we hope you’re having fun! You still have time to prepare for our discussion that will happen at the end of the month, so keep at it. And what about our poll? Our August theme is magical colleges, and if you’re curious about who’s in the lead, check it out. […]