To continue my re-read of all my Cassandra Clare books, The Bane Chronicles became number 11 of this attempt at the one hundred books in a year challenge.

If you’re interested in other books by this author, I’ve reviewed a few others here:

What I’m Reading- The Infernal Devices
What I’m Reading- The Red Scrolls of Magic
What I’m Reading- Ghosts of the Shadowmarket

plus there will be more to follow as I keep doing my mass re- read, so keep an eye on any ‘What I’m Reading‘ posts.

Originally released as a series of novella’s only available on kindle, these short stories are snapshots throughout Magnus’s life both before and after meeting Alec and the gang.  Some of the stories were co-written by other authors as well as Clare and you can really tell which ones weren’t written by her! They aren’t bad but they seem to lack that something which is quintessentially Cassandra Clare- esque. In the early stories Magnus is really frivolous and ridiculous, I guess like any powerful person realising their immortality would be… but we finally get some of the story of what happened to get him banned from Peru (this is a running joke throughout pretty much any book Magnus appears in).

As the stories’ progress you can feel him ageing, the narration subtley changes, as does Magnus; he seems to become gradually sadder and jaded, less enamoured by life and humanity. Until he meets Alec and, although, I might be biased because they are my favourite Shadowhunter couple besides Will and Tessa, their scenes together are so bloody sweet and cute!

I will say, if you’re a fan of the Shadowhunter Universe, then these are definitely worth a read but if you’re looking dip in or get started, this is not the one. It’s a fun book but I wouldn’t say it contributed anything massive to the overall picture.

As always, here is the link to the Goodreads page for this book