Home of the Alpha Showdown, and one-stop shop for urban fantasy, paranormal romance and fantasy news and reviews.
Welcome to Red London, and the start of V.E. Schwab’s tour for A Darker Shade of Magic. Before we get to the good stuff—a quick question with the author and an excellent giveaway—I want to say VBC is super excited about this book. It’s got magic and smuggling and underhanded deeds and a protagonist we love. We’ll have a review later on (the novel releases Feb. 24),
Need a little insight into the author? VBC’s Amy, who will be reviewing the book, was able to ask her a quick question.
VBC’s Amy: I was drawn into A Darker Shade of Magic from the moment Kell’s “very peculiar coat” is mentioned, so basically from the first page. What one thing from fiction (whether it’s from a book, TV, movie, etc.) would you like to see actually made real, and why?
V.E. Schwab: The castle from Howl’s Moving Castle, obviously. With its ability to pick up and move, demon Calcifer stoking the flames, but most of all, its door to multiple worlds, is it any surprise that this captured my fancy?
Not enough? We get it. Victoria’s crafted a brilliant world with A Darker Shade of Magic, and we want more insight to tide us over until it’s time for the book’s release next week. Tor Books created Darker-Shade.com, which has information on the different versions of London, an excerpt and some other fun details.
Or you could just go take a Buzzfeed quiz to be sorted into a version of London, Hogwarts-style. Fun fact: Book-related quizzes are the best quizzes.
Now for the fully skinny:
Kell is one of the last Travelers—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universes, connected by one magical city.
There’s Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, and with one mad king—George III. Red London, where life and magic are revered—and where Kell was raised alongside Rhy Maresh, the roguish heir to a flourishing empire. White London—a please where people fight to control magic and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. And once upon a time, there was Black London. But no one speaks of that now.
Officially, Kell is the Red Traveler, ambassador of the Maresh empire, carrying the monthly correspondences between the royals of each London. 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.
Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs into Delilah Bard, a cutpurse 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 afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they’ll first need to stay alive.
One lucky VBC reader (including you international folk!) will win a copy of A Darker Shade of Magic and one double-sided signed poster featuring the US and UK cover art. Use the form below to enter.
Magic, elementals, time travel and werewolves. Thank you for the giveaway!
The harry potter world
Superpowers! 😀 I would love that. 😀
A time turner! Then I could finally catch up on all my reading lists!
A time turner, a la Harry Potter, would be awesome!
ooooh umm so many things! can i say Kell’s many sided coat?? lol but also magical abilities 🙂
Kell’s many sided coat is pretty awesome. I would definitely like to see that myself!
Parallel Worlds that one could visit! And magic of course 😀
Magic!
Magic! But of the less frightening sort…
Time travel!
Magic. The world would be awesome if we could do spells. I wish it were real.
Definitely magic.
I wish everything from Harry Potter was real!!
Hermione’s time turner! Imagine all the extra time we’d get for reading 😀
Magic is the most obvious answer, haha! But of course everyone would only want the good parts. 😉
Having powers (telekinesis, telepathy,), elementals…
I wish Ents were real. I think they’d be fun to talk to.
Pretty much everything from Harry Potter, but I’d settle for just the invisibility cloak if we’re haggling.
“If we’re haggling…”
You just made my day, Emily. *high five*
There are some days I could really just use a timeturner.
Sounds exciting! I can’t wait to read this book. Thanks for the giveaway!
magic and magic creatures 🙂 thanks for sharing!
I’d like to have talking animals like in some fairy tales and other stories. Thanks
The medical tricorder from Star Trek and the Time Twister from Harry Potter.
Love your giveaways! Looks like a good one.
Magic and this one sounds great.
Can I say everything? Hmmm I always wanted the stuff that would make my life easier to be real… like for instance, the Accio spell from the Harry Potter novels because I always lose stuff. Recently, it’s probably Kell’s coat and any memorabilia from that book.
ability to fly
Ooh, tricky question! I noticed many people said Hermione’s time turner. I’d love something that could give me more time to read, so I think that’s a good answer.
Sounds fun!
I wish all magic was real!
Oh wow. This is hard to decide. Probably alchemy, because I’m a huge science fan and I would love love love to understand the chemistry of turning lead to gold. (Although I think I’d bore all the other characters to death.)
But you know, the real life has advantages. Like awesome books. So hyped for this one! ;P
Superpowers is what I’d want to be real! I would also like to have one of course!
I wish magic and time traveling were real. Thanks for the giveaway 🙂
The ability to teleport! No more driving for hours to get somewhere, just poof and you’re there!
Wish we were all able to talk with the animals and travel easily to parallel worlds.
If we are going with an item I’d have to say the Tardis. If anything counts than magic or super powers. Thanks for the giveaway! 🙂
I wish Bags of Holding were real!
It could happen keep looking for those places with magic. Then write about it, so I can go there too!
it would have to be teleport any where I want to
hmmm the elemental abilities from Avatar, Percy Jackson’s sword, and Kell’s coat!
I really want to get this book! excited!
Magic: I’d love to have powers.
Magic! That’d be fun, but I could also see it going south – very Voldemort-esque.
So maybe mermaids. Mermaids would be neat 🙂
The magic and whirlwind romance! Thanks for the giveaway 😀
I really wish that Hogwarts was real…or maybe the delivery owl is just really really late 🙂
Hmm…so many things, but maybe…magic. that would be super cool. As long as I could practice it of course. 😉
MAGIC and magical foods too lol
There are so many things I would want to be real, but the one thing I’ve always wanted most was a time turner. I could get so much more done.
Pensieves from Harry Potter
There are so many things that I wish were real… but magic would be really awesome!
Would it be bad if I said Wesley Ayers?
Okay, okay, for real then, it would definitely be some of the high fantasy aspects some authors just create. Or maybe dimension travelling. That’d be rad