A Darker Shade of Magic should be a book I like a whole lot: Decent writing, imperfect characters, parallel worlds – particularly parallel Londons – connected by magic, this book has it all.
And yet, it left me strangely cold. All the challenges the characters run into felt just a bit too contrived, as if they were the author’s whim. The female sassy-thief-finding-her-conscience just a bit too clever, the protagonist just a bit too bumbling, the evil antagonists just a bit too evil … The different worlds just a bit too stereotyped into their niches.
It’s not bad Fantasy by any means, but it didn’t work for me.
