Chain Of Gold by Cassandra Clare || Book Review
- jamiemac92
- Jan 2, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 3, 2020
Welcome to my review of Cassandra Clare's Chain Of Gold! I have been an avid Cassandra Clare fan from the beginning, and I jumped on the Shadowhunter band-wagon right from the start! But following along has become difficult over the years, after all, there are now SO many Shadowhunter books and as such so many, many different characters involved. The books have a way of weaving into each other, characters from other series appearing in another (which is awesome!) but can sometimes be hard to keep up with. However, although certain characters reappear or are mentioned in other books,Cassie does it in such a way that it is not imperative that you know exactly who they are or their significance; if it is, she'll easily remind you.
But, nonetheless, as a die hard fan, I wanted to be able to keep up and recognise ALL characters but found myself getting confused. So, after reading the Queen of Air and Darkness from the Dark Artifices trilogy, I told myself - "I need a break!"
When Chain of Gold came out, I put my hands up and said "I might not pick this up just yet", let it sit on the back burner a little while. Oh how wrong I was! I couldn't help myself, I read a few reviews on it and then I was hooked! And then I was annoyed I was even going to try avoid it in the first place and went and bought it ASAP.
What made me drop everything and dive right into this book was simply because it is the sequel to the Infernal Devices (which was my ULTIMATE favourite trilogy out of everything Cassandra Clare). I LOVED being immersed into the Victorian era, I find there's something so uniquely beautiful about it. Anyway, more on that later!
I read this book in a month, I couldn't put it down, which leads me into my first review section: Characters.
Just like all Cassandra Clare stories, Chain of Gold has a lot of intricate characters (which I expected from the start) so I purposefully paid close attention to every detail so that I could get a clear picture of who's who from the go. What I found immensely helpful, was that (unlike any of her other books) Chain of Gold has a character portrait at the start of the book that includes all the main characters. I absolutely loved this little feature, especially because there are so many characters, I found myself flicking back regularly in the beginning.
Friendship plays a big role in this book (as it has in all the others) but there was something much more significant about the group of friends in this. I love the group of Merry Thieves (James, Matthew, Thomas and Christopher) and how they interact with one another and the bond that they share, but I'm still not so sure why they call themselves that... but it's not important!
I have to say, my favourite character was probably Matthew; there's a deep, darkness to him that was not explored or revealed in this book so I'm looking forward to learning his story (plus his physical description is pretty yummy too!).
Cordelia and Lucie are fierce and lovable, both coming of age and into society, which is where the era really begins to thrive!
The only negative I really have regarding the characters, is that I found it slightly difficult to keep up with who is related to who! Like the character portrait at the start, I would love to see a family tree somewhere along the line.
As I have already mentioned; the timeline of this book is set in the Victorian era, the early 1900s, which is important to note because it helps the reader understand exactly where this book fits in terms of all the other ones:
The Infernal Devices
The Last Hours (Chain of Gold Book 1)
The Mortal Instruments
The Dark Artifices
I love the mix of old and new because the Shadowhunters are somewhat ahead of the time as back then women never wore trousers whereas the Shadowhunter women still wear their fighting gear.
But I love the uniqueness of the poofy dresses, the formal social etiquette and basically just the way they interact. One of my favourite parts was when Lucie comments on seeing a 'boy' in just his shirt front and how a lady shouldn't see any man, other than that in her family, in his shirt front. Love the little things like this!
I read that Cassie chose this era because it was the turn of the century, when a lot was changing, and it makes sense – we see sexuality being explored, there are a few characters with different sexual orientations and it is done in such a subtly beautiful way.
I liked the Chain of Gold story, it was much about solving something and fighting demons as it was about the characters. I personally don't like books that are all action, action, action - a fighting scene on every other page! But thankfully Cassie didn't do this and Chain of Gold has a bit over everything.
I will fully admit that I am one of those girls that loose interest if there is no love interest! I'm a sucker for a love story, and there are a few evolving ones in this book that I am excited to follow.
What I absolutely loved was the way Cassandra Clare integrated Will, Tessa and Jem into this book too. I don't like it when, a book is a sequel, and your favourite characters from the previous one just make a very small, insignificant entrance. Pet peeve! But Will, Tessa and Jem all play quite an important roles in this story, and I am so happy for it! I loved seeing where these characters have ended up and even learning more about them along the way - as James and Lucie (two on the main characters) are Tessa and Will's children.
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