Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare is a book that I have been looking forward to for years and it finally released two weeks ago. I just finished the book a few days ago and I have so much to say about it. The most important one being that I loved it and it was everything I could have asked for. Because I could talk about all the things that happened in this book for a long time, and because I want to avoid spoilers, as always, I have decided to focus on specific characters in this post.

I’ll start with Cordelia, one of the main characters and the girl on the cover of the book. Cordelia was childhood friends with the other two main characters, James and Lucie Herondale. She is half Persian and her family traveled a lot until her father was blamed for a failed Shadowhunter mission. Her family moves to London (where James and Lucie live) and Cordelia hopes to find a way to help her father. She is also hopelessly in love with James though he neither reciprocates (or does he?) nor realizes her love (sadly true). Cordelia has become one of my new favorite characters. Not only is she adorable, especially when interacting with James, but she is also incredibly clever and strong. Her biggest dream is to be a hero and her favorite book is Layla and Majnun. My heart hurt when hers did and it filled with joy when she was happy. It would be difficult not to love her.

I have loved James Herondale since before I read this book. I met Cordelia through flash fiction pieces Cassie wrote for her readers since she had to delay the release of this book, so I barely got to know her before. With James, there have already been short stories in books like The Bane Chronicles. He’s incredibly attentive to what his friends need and cares deeply about them and his family. His sense of honor is strong and he’s always willing to own up to his mistakes, especially to protect those he loves. He also loves to read, which is always great. He is hopelessly in love with Grace Blackthorn, however, the interactions between them seem suspicious. I’ll talk about Grace later though. Finally getting a whole book with James as a main character was amazing and I wish I didn’t have to wait a year for the next one.

James’ parabatai, or partner in battle, is Matthew Fairchild. Matthew, for a reason unknown to most characters, hates himself deeply for something he did years ago. He is extremely good at hiding that fact and acts perfectly happy, which hurts to read sometimes. My favorite thing about Matthew is his flair for the dramatic. He never fails to make me laugh and arguably has some of the best dialogues. He also cares very much for James and does not like Grace at all. He is the only one who knows about their relationship when the book starts and I’m sure he sensed something off just like I did as a reader.

Lucie Herondale is James’ younger sister and is the more daring and rebellious child. She is named after Lucie Manette from A Tale of Two Cities, one of her parents’ favorite books. She aspires to be a writer; one of her favorite stories to write is Cordelia the Beautiful, which she would send a chapter of to Cordelia every month. Cordelia is her best friend and future parabatai. Since she has moved to London, they can begin to train together. Her storyline is also linked to Jesse Blackthorn’s, who I will talk about in a later post. Lucie is highly protective of those she cares about and won’t hesitate to speak up. I can’t wait to read more about her in the following books.

There are several more characters I want to talk about, but I’ll save them for the next post so this one doesn’t get too long. All the art of the characters was done by Charlie Bowater and was commissioned by Cassandra Clare herself. Matthew and Lucie’s art match up the most to how I imagine them.