The Red Scrolls of Magic (The Eldest Curses, book 1)
By Cassandra Clare
Blurb:
All Magnus Bane wanted was a vacation—a lavish trip across Europe with Alec Lightwood, the Shadowhunter who against all odds is finally his boyfriend. But as soon as the pair settles in Paris, an old friend arrives with news about a demon-worshipping cult called the Crimson Hand that is bent on causing chaos around the world. A cult that was apparently founded by Magnus himself. Years ago. As a joke.
Now Magnus and Alec must race across Europe to track down the Crimson Hand and its elusive new leader before the cult can cause any more damage. As if it wasn’t bad enough that their romantic getaway has been sidetracked, demons are now dogging their every step, and it is becoming harder to tell friend from foe. As their quest for answers becomes increasingly dire, Magnus and Alec will have to trust each other more than ever—even if it means revealing the secrets they’ve both been keeping.
The Red Scrolls of Magic is the beginning of a new series by Cassandra Clare that is focused on Magnus and Alec’s relationship in the early days. This is set between City of Glass and City of Fallen Angels in The Mortal Instruments Series. It has been a long time since I read The Mortal Instruments series and I will reread one day but I think I was able to understand the setting of The Red Scrolls of Magic well enough.
Since I am a big fan of Cassandra Clare books, I have no complains of the writing style adopted and found the book easy and delightful to read, as always. The books are also third person as usual but this time there isn’t loads of perspectives. It’s just Magnus or Alec and since they’re together for most of the book there isn’t a fine line between them in a chapter but still in a way that makes sense on who’s feeling what.
I liked the intro of the book because it starts a week into their trip to Paris and basically jumps straight into the story. Nice and fast paced. Sometimes Cassandra Clare books can be quite slow but she always gets the right intro to a book.
The big thing about this book is all the sightseeing we get to read about. The book is set into 3 parts; City of Love, City of Masks, and City of War. The epilogue is named City I Call Home which I appreciate. The 3 parts all represent a different place they traveled to. City of Love is Paris, City of Masks is Venice and City of War is Rome. It was nice to see them move from each location and slightly explore them as a lot of the previous series are set mainly in the institutes, in one location. We also got to experience more of how downworlders infiltrate the mundane society without them even being aware, it just helped with the realism. It also showed us some European Shadowhunters such as Leon Verlac as for the most part we’ve only had American and some British.
The chapters in this book were a bit smaller than Cassandra Clare’s previous series chapter lengths so I’m glad about that. Although they were still too long for my appreciation. However, as the book was concluding they did get to a nice length.
The main plot for this book is that a cult called the Crimson Hand that is suspected to be created by Magnus a long time ago is now murdering fairies and other people. Magnus and Alec with the help of a warlock named Shinyun need to put a stop to it.
When a read a book, I tend to learn a lot of new words and a kindle is very convenient as I can highlight a word to find out it’s meaning. I think this Cassandra Clare book for some reason had me looking up words all the time. Which is understandable as Magnus is old and eccentric so he would say words I haven’t heard of. I’m not complaining I enjoy expanding my vocabulary, just noticed how much I was looking up words.
The reason I awarded 4.5 runes is because I compared it to other series by Cassandra Clare. I didn’t love it as much as The Infernal Devices and The Mortal Instruments but I did enjoy it better than The Dark Artifices series, so this gave me the in between number of 4.5.
*SPOILERS*
One thing I didn’t enjoy too much with Cassandra’s previous series was the throwing in of past characters that I just didn’t find fitting the story well, it felt like they were being used for the nostalgia. I’m glad to say I didn’t have this feeling when reading The Red Scrolls of Magic. There was some previous characters such as Tessa, Johnny Rook, Malcolm Fade, Ragnor Fell, Rapheal, Helen and Aline. But for the most part these are downworlders so a book about Magnus it is expected for him to bump into them. As for Helen and Aline, it was nice to get a little insight on how their relationship started too and just increased the LGBT+ representation. I just felt like the involvement of these characters worked nicely.
It was interesting reading about Malcolm Fade, as I just read The Dark Artifices series not too long ago where he was the enemy and now because it’s set in the past, he's just a party loving warlock again. This book sets him up as the High Warlock of Los Angeles, so it makes you so angry as you know what he is going to do once he gets there. That's what makes it so clever as the book is meant to mess with your emotions.
I enjoyed having Helen and Aline in the book as I was only just really finding out about them in The Dark Artifices series but I didn’t really get to see them properly as they were just thrown straight into the family during a hard time. So it was good seeing Helen when she wasn’t a responsible adult and really seeing her personality and to see Aline not angry all the time.
If I was to be picky of this story, I didn’t like how Alec had never driven a manual car, but was instantly able; for the most part drive it. Just took a bit of realism away for me.
I really liked the twists as I could guess them but not fully so it still managed to shock me. One in particular was Shinyun a warlock travelling companion to Magnus and Alec to help them stop the Crimson Hand turned out to be the leader. I was obviously suspicious of her but I guessed her to still be a member of the cult, not the leader with Asmodus.
Another twist in the book was that I thought when we found out that Shinyun was the leader and she captured Magnus, I thought she wanted him to return to the cult and resume as The Great Poison. However, what actually happened is that she captured him for disrespecting Asmodus and wanted to sacrifice him.
One final twist I didn’t expect was when the cult turned on Shinyun as they didn’t want her to lead them either.
A quote in the book I particularly liked that isn’t going to be the quote at the end of the review is ‘memory was a funny thing’. Whilst Magnus is getting his memory back there is sort of a 4th wall break where the narrator explains why in Magnus’ memory from a long time ago they speak as if it’s language used now. I just found this odd and amused me a little as I didn’t even think that the speech should have been different.
In the epilogue they set up the scene for the next book. Magnus and Alec finally discuss their worries that they both had during the holiday and finally slept together. I kind of wished this wasn’t in the epilogue and part of the main storyline. However, it does make sense as if people are uncomfortable with sex scenes they could potentially skip it a lot easier. Also in the epilogue, we discover Shinyun has Ragnor Fell.
Overall, I’m giving the book 4.5 runes out of 5 because I just found it enjoyable to read. It wasn’t as intense as the other books but it involved my favourite character Magnus Bane as the main role and it was nice to read something a bit more light-hearted from Cassandra Clare. I just simply found myself enjoying it.
It was interesting reading about Malcolm Fade, as I just read The Dark Artifices series not too long ago where he was the enemy and now because it’s set in the past, he's just a party loving warlock again. This book sets him up as the High Warlock of Los Angeles, so it makes you so angry as you know what he is going to do once he gets there. That's what makes it so clever as the book is meant to mess with your emotions.
I enjoyed having Helen and Aline in the book as I was only just really finding out about them in The Dark Artifices series but I didn’t really get to see them properly as they were just thrown straight into the family during a hard time. So it was good seeing Helen when she wasn’t a responsible adult and really seeing her personality and to see Aline not angry all the time.
If I was to be picky of this story, I didn’t like how Alec had never driven a manual car, but was instantly able; for the most part drive it. Just took a bit of realism away for me.
I really liked the twists as I could guess them but not fully so it still managed to shock me. One in particular was Shinyun a warlock travelling companion to Magnus and Alec to help them stop the Crimson Hand turned out to be the leader. I was obviously suspicious of her but I guessed her to still be a member of the cult, not the leader with Asmodus.
Another twist in the book was that I thought when we found out that Shinyun was the leader and she captured Magnus, I thought she wanted him to return to the cult and resume as The Great Poison. However, what actually happened is that she captured him for disrespecting Asmodus and wanted to sacrifice him.
One final twist I didn’t expect was when the cult turned on Shinyun as they didn’t want her to lead them either.
A quote in the book I particularly liked that isn’t going to be the quote at the end of the review is ‘memory was a funny thing’. Whilst Magnus is getting his memory back there is sort of a 4th wall break where the narrator explains why in Magnus’ memory from a long time ago they speak as if it’s language used now. I just found this odd and amused me a little as I didn’t even think that the speech should have been different.
In the epilogue they set up the scene for the next book. Magnus and Alec finally discuss their worries that they both had during the holiday and finally slept together. I kind of wished this wasn’t in the epilogue and part of the main storyline. However, it does make sense as if people are uncomfortable with sex scenes they could potentially skip it a lot easier. Also in the epilogue, we discover Shinyun has Ragnor Fell.
Overall, I’m giving the book 4.5 runes out of 5 because I just found it enjoyable to read. It wasn’t as intense as the other books but it involved my favourite character Magnus Bane as the main role and it was nice to read something a bit more light-hearted from Cassandra Clare. I just simply found myself enjoying it.
Quote:
'"I am feeling fairly sick myself," Raphael contributed, "of you being an idiot, Elliott."'
- Raphael Santiago, The Red Scrolls of Magic
Rating: 4.5 runes out of 5
written by Lauren
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