By Jaiden L.
Clockwork Angel is the first book in the Infernal Devices series by young adult fantasy author Cassandra Clare. The Infernal Devices books are set in Victorian London and are written as a prequel to Clare's bestselling Mortal Instruments urban fantasy series.
Clockwork Angel gets this new series off to a good start, introducing a whole new world populated with all new characters. The story's main protagonist is 16 year-old Tessa, a seemingly normal girl who, after journeying from New York to London to be reunited with her brother, finds herself kidnapped upon arrival. Held captive by the Dark Sisters, Tessa is forced to access hitherto unknown shape shifting abilities by the Sisters, who threaten the life of her brother Nate. There are some obvious parallels to Clary (the protagonist from her other series of books,) from the Mortal Instruments here – once again we see a girl who thought she was completely normal suddenly exposed to a hidden supernatural world when she finds out that she's got supernatural powers. Like Clary she ends up with no one to turn to except for the Shadowhunters, who offer her refuge and explanations for the world she's suddenly found herself in.
The mystery/adventure part of the plot line revolves around a nefarious plot to build an army of clockwork automatons (robots). Naturally because this is an urban fantasy story part of that plot involves stealing the skins of dead humans to clothe the machines and super-charging them with demon energies to give the automatons unnatural intelligence. It's certainly chilling and fantastic enough to satisfy any urban fantasy fan – although any self-respecting mystery fan is probably going to see the plot-twists coming a mile off.
On the whole Clockwork Angel is a well-written and well-paced story. Vampire fans should enjoy the vampire arch-villain and there are some great nail-biting action scenes when the Shadowhunters clash with the vampires. Fans of the Mortal Instrument books may find Tessa and Will lacking protagonists by comparison to Clary and Jace. They are similar enough to them to be a constant reminder that they are not them, but there's plenty of potential in Tessa and Will. All-in-all there are more than enough intrigues and unanswered questions in Clockwork Angel to hold the reader's interest in the Infernal Devices and the next part of Tessa and Will's story. If that wasn't enough the cliffhanger ending is guaranteed to whet appetites further!
JJ
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