I’m quite proud of myself for picking a book from my TBR cart instead of buying a new book. Some may give credit to the newborn keeping me at home a bit more than usual, but I really am trying to clear off the cart before making any big trips to the bookstore.

I initially picked up A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab after reading her novel The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (review here) earlier this year. I liked the book and Schwab’s writing style, so I thought it was worth a shot. Let me tell you – I made the right choice.

There should be warning labels on books that will cause loss of sleep. I have a 2.5-week-old baby. I should be sleeping every moment I have. Instead, all I want to do is keep reading. I’m about 150 pages in, and I can already tell I would fly through this in one day if I could.

I’m in the middle of about five series/trilogies at this point, so it was likely a bad idea to start yet another one without finishing the others. But I couldn’t help it.

Stay tuned for the review – I have a feeling it’s going to be a good one.

Synopsis

Kell is one of the last Antari―magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.

Kell was raised in Arnes―Red London―and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see. It’s a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they’ll first need to stay alive.