Synopsis and individual titles of the next Shadowhunters series ‘The Last Hours’

Posted on February 22, 2014

Cassandra Clare has announced that the erstwhile Shadowhunters Chronicles series ‘TLH’ is called The Last Hours.

The Last Hours is a new Shadowhunters series set in 1903. It deals with Will and Tessa’s children, James and Lucie Herondale, as well as Cordelia Carstairs, Charlotte and Henry’s children, Tatiana Blackthorn’s children, the Lightwood kids, and many more. 1903 is right around the time the Victorian era tips over into the Edwardian era — beautiful clothes, fabulous history and so much more that I’m excited to write about!

“For as long as Lucie Herondale can remember, the Herondale family manor has adjourned the manor of the Blackthorns.
It’s too bad that Tatiana Blackthorn, the matriarch of the family, has always been, as her father Will Herondale says, “mad as a mouse trapped in a teapot.” Since the day that her father Benedict murdered Tatiana’s husband, and was killed in turn by a group of Shadowhunters that included both her brothers, Tatiana has nursed a burning grudge against the London Institute and all its inhabitants, especially Will, Tessa and their children: Lucie and her brother, James …”

Clare took to her Tumblr blog to explain that the title comes from The Great Expectations, of which the series is a retelling.

You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since — on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hours of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. — Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

The individual titles of the three books are as follow:

1. Chain of Thorns
2. Chain of Gold
3. Chain of Iron

The books will interconnect with The Dark Artifices trilogy as two separate trilogies that are also the stories of the Blackthorns, Herondales and Carstairs, much like TMI and The Infernal Devices interconnected despite taking place in different time periods and locations.

As a fan of The Great Expectations, I am really excited for this connection. Fans of Dorian Gray would know how Will Herondale’s trips to the opium den and subsequent unraveling is a great retelling from the classic Oscar Wilde book. A Shadowhunter retelling is a great way to revisit the Charles Dickens classic now.

However, Clare confirms that the next Shadowhunter book will definitely be The Dark Artifices‘s Lady Midnight.