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A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab is the second in the Darker Shade of Magic Series which centres on Kell, an Antari magician who has the ability to move between different worlds, and Lila, a young woman from “our” London who has ended up in Kell’s magical home world.  I really enjoyed the first book, A Darker Shade of Magic, and was very much looking forward to this next instalment.  I LOVED this book and am happy to recommend it. What I liked The characters.  Right from the beginning, Lila had me chuckling along with her sassy attitude and I sympathised with Kell and Rhy as they tried to come to terms with the events of the previous book.  Some new characters are introduced, notably Alucard Emery.  This is a particularly interesting new addition as both our protagonists have very different attitudes towards him.  This leaves the reader somewhat torn about how to feel about him.  He’s rather a mysterious characters – It’s clear that he’s a lot more than just the pirate – excuse me, privateer – that he claims to be.  I really hope we learn more about him in subsequent books. The romance.  The relationship between…

The Archived by Victoria Schwab is another book that has been gathering great buzz on the booktuber network, and with good reason.  It is a very fresh young adult paranormal mystery with great characters and excellent worldbuilding.  it tells the story of Mackenzie Bishop, a young woman who has a secret job as  Keeper; in the world of The Archive, when you die, your life history is recorded and kept in the Archive, physically represented by a copy of your body.  Occasionally a History will wake and try to escape to the real world and it’s a Keeper’s role to return this History to the Archive. When Mackenzie moves to a new area she finds that her Keeper territory is extremely busy and that it could be related to a series of murders that took place in her new building as well as an an internal betrayal within the Archive.  She must investigate this connection as well as adapt to her new home. What I liked The supernatural murder mystery.  I really enjoyed the way this was built up with various suspects and roadblocks to information.  I enjoyed that Mackenzie had to use both her supernatural and her normal powers…