Chain of Gold Book Review ( Spoiler Alert!!)

 I know I'm pretty late to do this since the book came out in March, and as of now, it's August, but I am still gonna do it. 

The Chain of Gold is the first book in The Last Hours series and is set in Edwardian London and is the next generation story of The Infernal Devices series, which is set in Victorian London. The book is mostly written from the point of Cordelia Carstairs, who is the female main character. Other main characters include James and Lucie Herondale, Thomas and Christopher Lightwood, Matthew Fairchild, Jesse, Grace Blackthorn, and Alastair Carstairs. 

We were first introduced to this era in Tales from Shadowhunter Academy, where Tessa tells us about James and how he can slip in as shadows due to his demonic origins from his mother's side ( Tessa is his mother). We are also told about how Matthew and James become Parabatai. Then in a few bonus chapters from Cassandra claire before the book's release,k we were told about the relationship of Herondales with Cordelia Carstairs. With Lucie being Cordelia's Parabatai and the family tree telling us that James and Cordelia get married. 

Once you actually read the book, it is nothing that we expected it to be like. The villain, as shown, is James' Grandfather, who is one of the great demon. His pawn in all this is Tatiana Blackthorn, who is ready to do his dirty deeds in exchange for bringing his son Jesse Blackthorn back to life. Belial (the great demon - grandfather) wants James, and Tatiana wants revenge on Will, so it's a perfect match. The Merry Thieves- James, Christopher, Matthew, and Thomas attracted trouble ( like their parents and their next generations), and this time they caused a lot of trouble with Clave (which is never on the right side). They burned Tatiana's house and fought with Belial, and did 20 other things that will get them in trouble.

While The Merry Thieves are busy patrolling Streets in London, Lucie is busy saving this ghost, who is also my favorite character, Jesse Blackthorn. She wants to bring his body back, which we know happens because Lucie marries Jesse according to the family tree. He is one of my favorite characters because he saved Lucie's life when she was a kid and saved Cordelia's life in the present. Jesse is introduced to us in the first prologue chapter, where he helps a 10-year-old Lucie as she falls in a pit. We see him ( well, Lucie sees him) when the blackthorn family attended the London Institute ball. 

Lucie and Jesse

In my very unpopular opinion, I might like Jesse more than James. James is different than rest of the Herondales. He doesn't have that hereditary Sass or the fear of ducks. He is charming and good-looking ( of course good looking he is the son of Will Herondale, I mean), but he is sweet and mature like Julian. Well, Julian had to be grown ( he was taking care of 4 children all by himself), but I, as of now, don't get why James is this mature, but maybe later on. There was an exciting character development in Alastair Carstairs from what we were told about him in the Tales of Shadowhunter Academy. When he was first introduced to us, he was a bully, but in The Chain of Gold, we got to see a new side of Alastair as he actually helps (well, not that much of help, but still) James and The Merry Thieves instead of bullying them. So, I want to hate Grace for giving James that enchanted Bracelet, which led him to fall in love with her when he was actually in love with Cordelia. But I can't because Grace was a good character ( I did not say person, I hate her as a person, well hate is a strong word, but I still don't like her as a person). She brought a lot to the story, and her character was very developed and robust.

Grace, Alastair, and Jesse are the only characters I think I want to write about cause we all pretty much knew about the rest of them. These characters, I feel, weren't what I expected them to be like this. When I first started reading, I expected Grace to be sweet but strong and Alastair to still be a bully, but they were not that bad. And James and Jesse probably had a personality switch for me. I was expecting Jesse to be sweet and mature and James to be kind of the sassy one here. I was so wrong. 

Overall this book was just incredible. Of course, it's Shadowhunters, so I'm gonna love it no matter what, but this book might be better than The Mortal Instruments series as a whole. If I had to rank this on a scale of 10, it's a definite 8.