Booklog 25/2025: V.E. Schwab: A Conjuring of Light – Shades of Magic #3 – Audiobook

[jacey]

Audiobook read by Kate Reading & Michael Kramer

This is the final book in a trilogy chronicling the story of four parallel Londons (Grey, Red, White and Black) begun in A Darker Shade of Magic and continued in A Gathering of Shadows.  My review of the second book said it was plot-light, and on consideration I think the events in the second and third books could have been covered in one book. There's plenty happening in A Conjuring of Light but the narrative jumps around to various different viewpoints, many of them unnecessary characters you are neither interested in nor care about. Lila and Kell, the main protagonists, are together, and Captain Alucard's love affair with Prince Rhy is more to the fore. Holland, in White London, has been inhabited by Black London's Osaron, a powerful being, a god-like entity who wants to be a king. Osaron seems pretty much set to subsume Red London. He's taken the city, all except for the warded palace, and so Kell, Lila, Alucard and Holland (in chains) set off for the floating market to acquire a device which they hope will trap and destroy him. This is the final book in a trilogy so you can pretty much guarantee peril followed by success. Unfortunately by the time I got half-way through this book I was losing the will to live, and then I followed an advert and read the blurb for The Fragile Threads of Power, set seven years on from the trilogy - and the blurb told me who lived, who died and what the two main protagonists did afterwards. It somewhat took the shine off listening to the rest of the story, but I'm no quitter, so I upped the reading speed to 1.3 and kept going. Schwab's writing style is elegant, but by the end neither Kell nor Lila had really developed much. We never found out about their origins, so questions asked earlier in the trilogy were left unanswered. Prince Rhy, Kells adoptive brother, grew up out of necessity, but the most convincing character arc was Holland's. He is, in fact, the hidden hero of the trilogy. The first book was read by Steven Crossley. The second and third were read by Kate Reading & Michael Kramer, depending on whether we're in a male or female point of view. I actually preferred the narrator of the first book, as I always prefer a single voice telling the story.