I wasn’t really a fan of this one, though.
The first problem I had was that this instalment literally took me ten minutes to read. I get that it’s a novella, but the other Magnus Bane Chronicles seemed a lot longer than this.
There was no story to speak of - it was just a series of voicemail messages left on Magnus’s phone by assorted Shadowhunters, all of whom were trying to get Magnus to get back together with Alec. Plus, quite a lot of the messages were from Isabelle, who is my least-favourite Shadowhunter.
None of them seem to be saying the obvious, which to my mind was, ‘Yeah, Alec did a really screwed-up thing by attempting to take away your immortality without your knowledge or consent.’ Don’t get me wrong - the whole Magnus-Alec-immortality thing was one of my favourite storylines in TMI, but all of Alec’s friends turning round afterwards and trying to guilt Magnus into getting back with Alec just didn’t sit right with me.
Despite this being part of the Bane Chronicles, Magnus doesn’t actually feature in this instalment at all. This gave me the squint because Magnus is my favourite TMI character.
So that’s it really. I really enjoyed all the other Bane Chronicles and would recommend them to TMI fans, but this one left me feeling a bit ripped-off.
Check it out. I think maybe my review has ended up being longer than the book I was reviewing.
3/10