This was another book I waited way too long for at the library. I think it came out last summer then I saw it a Boarders and requested it. Next week is March so you do the math. Unlike the debacle with Straight Up I think this one was actually worth the wait. If you're familiar with the steampunk genre this definantely qualifies, picture a whole bunch of Artemis Gordons running around with swords battling the forces of darkness and you have it about right. This is the first of a trilogyof books that proceeds Cassandra Clare's bestselling Mortal Instruments...wait what do you call a series of six books. A sexolgy? Now I've never read them, actually I've never even heard of them so I have no basis for comparison.The concept is fun, a girl crosses the Atlantic to join her older brother in England. The representatives who meet her ship claiming to be from her brother kidnap her and hold her hostage, forcing her to discover that she has the ability to turn into other people. THey keep her subdued by threatening his life. She is told that because of her special talent she is promised in marriage to the Magister, a dark leader of Downworlders, the vampires, werewolves, warlocks, etc. You know the type.
Only when a Shadowhunter, one of the descendants of Angels sworn to protect humans against Downworlders stumbles across her by accident does she escape and begin to learn more about the strange realities of the world.
I think if you're going to try and get published in the young adult genre today you have to have some kind of supernatural angle. I can think of very few examples, whether historical fiction or not that don't (think of Libba Bray and her Gemma Doyle trilogy starting with A Great and Terrible Beauty). Meg Cabot(though her Mediator series of YA and her new series for adults starting with Insatiable are supernatural), Ally Carter who deals with the more spy genre, Gossip Girl, Anna Godbersen, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, but face it you have to have at least one vampire wandering around to satisfy readers. Clockwork Angel doesn't disappoint on this count, giving a fascinating history to the race of Nephilim, or Shadowhunter, the descendents of angels. She tells a good yard, one that keeps you constantly straining to go deeper and learn more, revealed layer by layer it makes for excellent reading.
Her characters are also finely drawn and engaging. The trio at the center of the story, Tessa our heroine and the two Nephilim who save her, Will and Jem are all endearing characters. Tessa despite her magical ability to transform is still very much practically grounded in the real world, willing to sacrifice life and limb to save her douchebag of a brother. Will is the Byronic hero, constantly angry and wounded. He uses people and things like Kleenex as if trying to prove something existential about life. THough the majority of his life is a secret, Tessa of course seems determined to melt away his icy facade. Jem is the obligatory consumptive of the VIctorian era, an addict to demon poison (think opium addict) it is slowly killing him, and he tries to prove himself as much as he can before the inevitable. He's the Jacob Black of this story, falling hopelessly for Tessa, who though attracted to him is much more of a mother hen. THe secondary characters are no less interesting, CHarlotte and Henry the disfunctional leaders of the Nephilim who are young, inexperienced, and eccentric caretakers as well as Jessamine the airhead with a heart of gold and parasol of steel.
Its a good lead in to a series, though surprisingly little has been revealed. Character development is certainly a premium for Clare, and it works because so much of the books reads as internal monologue. There is enough violence to keep our dark hearts satisfied and a minimum of romance to keep me from gagging. I'll confess I liked it a lot, perhaps enough to try for the sequels in the mortal Instruments series, even though I never find modern life as exciting as the past.
