From #1 New York Times bestseller Cassandra Clare and award-winner Wesley Chu comes the first book in a new series that follows High Warlock Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood as they tour the world after the Mortal War. The Red Scrolls of Magic is a Shadowhunters novel.
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 first book of a new trilogy The Eldest Curses, by Cassandra Clare in her famous world of The Shadowhunter Chronicles. It features two of her already well-known characters, a warlock Magnus Bane and Shadowhunter Alec Lightwood. It’s set a few weeks after the ending of the Mortal World (first three Mortal Instruments books), during couple’s long-awaited vacation in Europe.

It all starts nice and easy like every romantic holiday should, but as always, when you are a high warlock of New York, it’s almost impossible to get a few moments of peace. Only a few days after their arrival in Paris, Tessa informs Magnus of a demon-worshiping cult that kills humans and faeries and is rumored is led by Magnus himself. In order to make his life even more complicated, it turned out, a couple of decades ago, he started a cult that worships greater demon and one of the Princes of Hell – Asmodeus- who is also Magnus’s father. Magnus, Alec, Helen, and Aline will have a lot of work to do in order to undo what Magnus has initially started as a joke, but over the years turned into a bloodthirsty cult with serious intentions of summoning one of the most dangerous demons in the world.

To be honest, I went into this book completely without any expectations or hopes – let’s just see how it turns out. I’ve read all Clare’s work in The Shadowhunter Universe, and even though I love her books, The Eldest Curses just never sounded particularly promising. A mediocre fantasy novel with a mediocre plot and pretty much well-known characters I knew a lot about. Since it is set about 5 years before the events of Queen of Air and Darkness, I knew the fates of all characters and there wasn’t much to be said about them. It’s not like I don’t love them, just that they appeared in a total of 9 novels so far, plus a couple of novellas. Knowing all MCs on that level completely destroys every attempt to create conflict tension or any mysterious effect for readers.

The plot was just… okay. Like, fine, things are happening and they are a bit tense but I know what happens in the end because I read all Clare’s books so I don’t really care about them destroying churches. It felt like this book’s sole purpose was to work on relations between characters, but hey! How can that be done if, again, we know how is everything going to end for them and there is really no point in creating conflicts or drama? I know I’m repeating myself, but so does this book, whoops.

Okay, so, for Shadowhunter fans, why is this book worth reading?

Well, there is a lot of Malec fluff and some Haline getting together, so if you’re up for a waaay too long fanfiction, this is a book for you. But for me, there is one thing that made this book a solid read for me.

The Eldest Curses is probably the only trilogy in Clare’s universe that does not feature Shadowhunters. Yes, there are Shadowhunters and 3 out of 4 MCs are Shadowhunters (wow, this does not contribute to my thesis), but the book itself is focused more on the Downworld and the other part of the Shadow World. During every book Clare has ever written, readers have been introduced to the Downworlder-Shadowhunter conflict all over again, but always more or less from the Shadowhunter point of view. Downworlders were always represented as sort of an oppressed minority, subdued by the Clave. It is a really complex relationship and I don’t feel like doing 12 books worth explaining, but I was really satisfied with getting a little bit deeper into the Downworld.