Chain of Gold is the first book in Cassandra Clare’s new series, The Last Hours. Chain of Gold follows a myriad of interesting characters that you simply can’t help but love. It is set in Clare’s well acclaimed world known as the Shadow World. The main characters of this book are all what are called Nephilim, but more commonly referred to as shadow hunters. Their job in this world is to protect the unwitting civilization of mankind from demons that can come into this world from other ones. What’s unusual though, is that for the past several years demon attacks in the home city of the protagonists, London, have been near non-existent, making the shadow hunters become weak, and lazy. Instead of being accustomed to fighting off attacks on a regular basis, they instead only see it in the walls of the practice room. Everything begins to change however, shortly after Cordelia Carstairs moves with her mother and brother, Alastair to live in London where her long time family friends the Herondale family reside. The children, James and Lucie, are her best friends and she quickly meets the rest of their friends, Anna, Thomas, Matthew, Christopher, and many more. Soon tragedy begins to strike however, as a new breed of a demons have begun to infiltrate London, bringing with them a deadly poison that begins to infect some of the shadow hunters. The appearance of these new demons is only made stranger by the appearance of the disgraced Blackthorn family. Grace Blackthorn appears to be very close with James, but something just doesn’t seem right about them. Lucie soon discovers however that she is not the only child to live within the walls of the Blackthorn house, although living might not be the best choice of words of what Jesse Blackthorn, a partial ghost does. But what is even more concerning than this family’s appearance though, is that the visions of a different realm, one made of shadows, have become to come to James again, despite him not having them since he was a young child. As all the events add up you can’t help but wonder what’s in store for our heroes. And will they be able to emerge victorious from the looming conflict. 

One of things that I particularly liked when reading this book was the characterization, as Cassandra Clare just has a way of bringing the characters to life as if they’re about to jump off the page into the real world. The entire world comes to life between the pages, and you can’t help but imagine beautiful institutes, picnics in the park, powerful warlocks, cunning fae, devious vampires, and everything in between. The story also has a good balance between furthering the plot and all the actions having importance, and those little moments that just highlight the fact that the characters are, if only partially, human just like the reader. Not only are there scenes with characters charging into battle or hatching a scheme, but there’s also the protagonists laughing together, dealing with issues that don’t directly influence the plot, deal with their emotions, and overall be a somewhat normal teenager in certain regards. So if an action packed story with fantasy galore and a story you just want to jump into yourself, then this book may be for you. 

Checkout Chain of Gold from the Newport Beach Public Library.