Yeah... Loving this book was kind of inevitable

Clockwork Angel, The Infernal Devices: Book One
By Cassandra Clare

So, this is the second Cassandra Clare book in one month-but it’s a different series!

Clockwork Angel is set in the same world as The Mortal Instruments series, but in the 1800s. It centres around sixteen year-old Tessa Gray, who, after her aunt’s death, travels to London to live with her brother. When she arrives, she is captured and imprisoned by two warlocks, the Dark Sisters, who force her to use her power of shape changing – a power she did not realize she possessed – and prepare her for a marriage to the elusive character known only as The Magister. Tessa, now knowing what she is – a warlock – finds herself thrown together with a group of shadow hunters who are trying to stop the Magister from taking over the city, and Tessa has to choose between finding her brother and saving London.

I came to The Infernal Devices Series from the Mortal Instruments Series with a number of expectations about what this new series would be like. Clockwork Angel exceeded them all. It’s just as funny as the first series, but I think this book really ramps it up a notch in terms of the writing and the plot; there are a lot of twists that you don’t expect.

The characters are very different from the first series. It would have been very easy to have a second series with the same type of characters, and the same character dynamics, but all the relationships are very different.

Of course, because this series is set almost 150 years earlier there’s only one character that carries over; the immortal, and flamboyant warlock Magnus Bane, however there are characters who are ancestors of the characters in the Mortal Instruments. Names like Lightwood, Wayland, Herrondale, and Penhollow carry over, even if the individual characters do not.

Tessa is a very interesting character; most heroines from books set in this period, and from this genre, are girls who refuse to behave as society expects of them, and instead wear pants and run off and become highway men, or pirates… Tessa, on the other hand, while she is not a frivolous character,  has the opinion that women should not wear pants or fight. Of course this doesn’t mean she’s not a strong-willed, feisty character. Over the course of the story, the feisty side in her comes out. She’s a very smart well-read character, and is one of the few characters in the story who can “manage” one of the more arrogant shadow hunters - Will – with the witty come backs she always seems to have on hand.

“Dear God,” said Will, looking from Charlotte to Nate and back again. “Is there anything that makes women sillier than the sight of a wounded young man?”
Tessa slitted her eyes at him. “You might want to clean the rest of the blood of your face before you continue arguing in that vein.”
Will threw his arms up in the air and stalked off.Charlotte looked at Tessa, a half smile curving the side of her mouth. “I must say, I rather like the way you manage Will.”
Tessa shook her head. “No one manages Will.” 

If anything, Tessa is proof that you don’t have to hate dresses and femininity to be hard-core.

“If you have a soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. Whatever the color, the shape, the design of the shade that conceals it, the flame inside the lamp remains the same. You are that flame.” 

Feisty chick-o-meter: 10/10
Age rating: 15+
Rating: 10/10
Book or audiobook: Book
Stand alone or series: Series
Last word: Is