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It’s actually been a few months since I read this book, but I’m only getting around to reviewing it now. Ghosts of the Shadow Market by Cassandra Clare is a collection of ten novellas set in Clare’s bestselling Shadowhunter world. The stories follow Jem Carstairs, one of the three main characters from Clare’s The Infernal Devices series. For most of the stories he is his Silent Brother identity of Brother Zachariah.
Setting
The setting varies wildly from Victorian London to Los Angeles in 2012. However, each story centres around the local Shadow Market where the local Downworlders meet to buy, sell, socialize, and everything else you’d expect from a bustling marketplace. There are faeries, vampires, werewolves, and warlocks galore. And, of course, Shadowhunters.
A Few of my Favourite Characters
Jem Carstairs
Of course, Jem Carstairs, aka Brother Zachariah, is our main man. Jem is one of my all-time favourite characters from Cassandra Clare’s books. He’s kind, sweet, and always tries to do good, even with the emotional distance caused by the Silent Brothers’ runes.
Jem is on a mission to find the First Heir, the child of the Seelie Queen and Unseelie Queen. Failing that, he hopes to find her descendants. Along the way, he becomes privy to many secrets and witnesses many heartbreaks. The Silent Brother runes make him not entirely himself, so while he deals with each situation with as much compassion as he has left, there are times when he needed to do more. Especially regarding Celine Montclaire.
Rosemary Herondale
Here’s a character I never expected to learn much about and didn’t expect to like so much if I did. We first meet Rosemary in The Wicked Ones and Through Blood, Through Fire. Rosemary starts out as a brave but tempestuous teenager rebelling against her parents who are trying to protect her from a threat that she doesn’t believe exists. She finds out that the threat is real in the worst way and goes on to marry Johnny Rook while on the run, and becomes the mother of Kit Herondale. She is a sympathetic character who will do anything to protect her son – even if it means she never sees him again. I like her very much after reading the novellas. Unfortunately, I came out it liking Johnny Rook even less than I did in The Dark Artifices.
Celine Montclaire
We meet Celine Montclaire in The Wicked Ones. She is first mentioned in The Mortal Instruments as the mother of Jace Herondale. The characters who knew her all imply her to be childish and somewhat helpless, entirely devoted to Stephen Herondale and willing to do anything Valentine Morgenstern asks. In The Wicked Ones we find out that she is much more complicated than that.
The child of abusive parents, Celine spends much of her time at the Shadow Market to avoid being home. Rather than being childish and foolish as we were lead to believe, she is actually vulnerable, desperate, and emotionally damaged. This makes her an easy target for Valentine Morgenstern to draw into the Circle. I won’t spoil the entire novella, but I will sum up by saying that I find Celine’s story very sad. She deserved better, and she didn’t live long enough to come to believe that she deserved a life better than suffering.
Tessa Gray
Would it really be a book about Jem if Tessa wasn’t in it?
Tessa is more than just the love of Jem’s life. She is a warlock, a shapeshifter, and the widowed wife of Will Herondale. Other characters come and go, but Tessa is a constant throughout the novellas. Even when she doesn’t appear in person, she is always on Jem’s mind, as is Will. She is quiet, determined, and full of feminine strength. I feel like my love for The Infernal Devices is showing. We got to see Tessa hurt and Jem fussing over her, and Jem hurt and Tessa afraid for him in this novella collection and I am thrilled with both of them.
Honourary mention: Catarina Loss, who we never get to see enough of but who is always awesome.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I found the stories to be very enjoyable. They were much better written than the stories in The Bane Chronicles, so I’d say that Clare has improved a lot since then. My one criticism is that unlike The Bane Chronicles, it’s hard to tell which title goes for which story line since it’s not intuitive. For example, one story is called Learn About Loss and another is The Land I Lost, and I can’t keep them straight, but I know one is where Alec meets Rafe. So, minor criticism, I don’t expect her to change her naming scheme on my account. But definitely read the novellas if you want extra background info on the characters that aren’t in the main series.
I also reviewed Chain of Gold. Read my review here.
