Seven years after the defeat of Osaron, Rhy Maresh's kingdom is under threat from enemies old and new. Alucard is still the lead man in his life (both personally and professionally) but has failed to identify any members of "The Hand", an underground group determined to overthrow the king. Lila and Kell return from covert seafaring missions to assist. While revisiting beloved characters from the Darker Shade of Magic series is satisfying, the real gem of the story is a Tes. The new character is a scrappy tinkerer who cannot wield magic but can see it and, most importantly, repair it. Meanwhile, in Gray London, the child queen is seven years older and determined to restore magic to her nearly magic-less land. The extensive flashbacks are confusing and could have been integrated more efficiently. Schwab's lavish descriptive style would be irritating if not for the skill in using it. ( )

Vor sieben Jahren wurde der Schatten besiegt und eigentlich könnte alles gut sein, doch es gehen Gerüchte, dass man mithilfe eines magischen Artefakts ein Attentat auf den König verüben will. Die Magierin Lila geht der Sache nach. Dabei trifft sie auch auf eine junge Tüftlerin namens Tes, welche die Fäden der Magie manipulieren kann. Damit könnte sie das Gleichgewicht der Welten verändern.
Ich mag den sehr besonderen Erzählstil von V. E. Schwab und konnte an diesem Buch daher nicht vorbeikommen. Als ich mich für dieses Buch (den Auftaktband der Threads of Power Reihe) entschieden habe, wusste ich nicht, dass es das Spin off zur Weltenwanderer-Trilogie ist. Es hätte mir den Einstieg wahrscheinlich leichter gemacht. Dennoch ist es auch ohne diese Vorkenntnisse lesbar.
Die Charaktere sind sehr gut ausgearbeitet und jede Figur hat ihren eigenen Charakter. Das Zusammenspiel verläuft nicht ohne Konflikte. Ich mochte Tes sehr gerne, aber auch Kell und Nadiya haben mir gefallen. Lilas Art dagegen mochte ich nicht, aber eine interessante Figur ist sie schon. Dagegen ist die Darstellung der Welten für mich etwas zu kurz geraten, aber vielleicht fehlen mir da einfach die Vorkenntnisse.
Viele Zeiten- und Perspektivwechsel machen die Sache spannend. Außerdem gibt es Einblicke in die Vergangenheit, so dass man auch einen Überblick bekommt, wie sich in den letzten Jahren alles entwickelt hat.
Es ist eine fesselnde Geschichte mit einer komplexen Handlung und einem tollen Erzählstil. Eigentlich ist es so gar nicht mein Genre, aber dennoch habe ich das Buch gerne gelesen. Nun bin ich gespannt auf die Fortsetzung. ( )

It's been seven years since the events of A Conjuring of Light and life in Red London continues with new dangers on the horizon. Rhy sits on the throne but is facing threats from the mysterious society that calls itself the Hand. The Hand is convinced that magic in the kingdom is waning and that the fault lies with their king being unable to wield magic. As the Hand plots, it will pull a young woman named Tes who can see the threads of magic into the fray. The conflict will also bring Kell and Lila back from their lives on the sea to the rougher waters of politics and conspiracy. Meanwhile, in White London there is a child queen on the throne who is helping the kingdom as its magic slowly revives. But all may not be as it seems with the young monarch...

Diving back into the world Schwab has created is such a delight. Her characters continue to hold amazing depth and was so pleased to see familiar faces and encounter new ones. Schwab does a brilliant job of building suspense and setting up mysteries, some of which are resolved in this novel and others which remain open. A fantastic opening to a new trilogy that fans of The Darker Shade of Magic trilogy should definitely seek out. My only quibble is that the hardcover edition of the book has quite thin pages. It makes the book less hefty, with its 600+ page count, but it did lead to accidentally turning more than one page a few times. ( )

The Fragile Threads of Power is V. E. Schwab's return to the world she created in the Shades of Magic trilogy. While other readers are lauding this new trilogy and its characters, I confess their enthusiasm baffles me. I did not enjoy my time with Kell, Lila, Tes, and Kosika. Even worse, I had to force myself to finish the book, each time hoping something would click and I would find it impossible to put down.

I suspect part of my issues with The Fragile Threads of Power is that I never finished the original series. In theory, you don't need to read the Shades of Magic books before starting this new series. Ms. Schwab encourages new readers to jump right into The Fragile Threads of Power without worrying about what happened. Unfortunately, much of the story refers to events or people from those first three books. There is an entire untold story behind Lila's and Kell's every interaction. It isn't just between Lila and Kell. There are entire unspoken conversations between almost every character who you were supposed to first meet in the previous trilogy. Without that knowledge, you are missing a key component of this new story.

Plus, Ms. Schwab often refers to events in the Shades of Magic trilogy, the big battle, the enemy they fought, and the consequences. Unfortunately, she refers only; she provides no details for new readers. You can only infer what you can from these references without grasping the full picture. There is no world-building because Ms. Schwab already did it. She might be encouraging new readers that The Fragile Threads of Power is the first book in a stand-alone trilogy, but I do not believe it is. She relies too much on the events from the first trilogy and the world-building she already did for that series.

To make matters worse, The Fragile Threads of Power is slow. Most of the book is one long introduction to each of the characters, with particular attention to the new ones. For Tes and Kosika, we get their complete backstory and everything they experienced that brought them to this point. This doesn't leave much in the way of establishing a new story. What action exists occurs at the end, and it has all the feels of a skirmish meant to test each side. By the end of the novel, there are still too many players and too many side stories to be able to discern what the main threat will be.

Perhaps I would have enjoyed The Fragile Threads of Power more had I not read the first book in the Shades of Magic trilogy. It might be that I would have been less frustrated without what little knowledge I had about the different Londons and the returning characters. Maybe The Fragile Threads of Power is the first book in a new, stand-alone series. All I do know is that I found The Fragile Threads of Power to be tedious reading, with more character introduction than plot, and overly reliant on details from the previous series. I did not click with any of the characters and do not feel that any are in the type of danger that would make me want to read more of their story. I'll leave that to the fans, of which there are many. ( )

I loved the trilogy that preceded this book, which is apparently the first of a new continuation of the series. The plot will seem complicated from my summary (which I include to help me remember for the next book) but the main emphasis is on character development and interaction, and the characters are both memorable and endearing.

The original saga began in 2015 with A Darker Shade of Magic, continued with A Gathering of Shadows, and ended with A Conjuring of Light. In those books, set in a fantasy version of 1819, we learned there were four Londons in four separate worlds that could be traversed by magic only available to a few.

This new series begins some six years later, and takes us back to all four worlds. In Red London, the main locus of the story, we meet 15-year-old Tesali Ranek, known as Tes. She runs a repair shop, allegedly working as an apprentice for a Master Haskin, although there was no such person, but Tes needed legitimacy. Tes was just a teenager, but she had a unique skill. She could see threads of power, manipulate them, and fix those that were broken.

In that way, her skill surpassed even that of Alucard Emery, consort to the king, who could also see threads of magic but couldn’t reshape them. He, along with the king, Rhy Maresh, were trying to monitor an increasing threat by the members of the Hand. This underground movement was seeking to topple the king.

Alucard and Ray were helped by Delilah Bard - Lila, - captain of the Grey Barron, the ship she took over from Alucard when it was called the Night Spire. Lila was an Antari, the strongest type of magician in the world; there were only a few who matched her in power. Alucard tasked her with working undercover to find out what she could about the Hand. Kell Maresh, 22, brother to the king and Lila’s lover, is on the ship as well. Kell used to be the most powerful magician in the kingdom, but his power was shattered by Osaron, the dark force that destroyed Black London. Osaron was defeated, but now Kell cannot call upon his own power without being overcome by wracking pain.

Nadiya Loreni is Rhy’s queen and mother to their daughter (co-parented by Alucard as well), Tieren "Ren" Maresh, 4 years old. Nadiya is an inventor, and was happy to tinker in her workshop and let Alucard be Rhy’s companion. No one fully trusted her however.

Ren was named for the deceased and beloved royal priest named Tieren. Rhy is now advised by Ezril, the tenth royal priest, who replaced Tieren after his death. The priests are a mysterious force in their own right, suggesting, perhaps, the power of yet another type of magic in the world.

In alternate segments, we learn what is happening with the Hand. Its members are trying to obtain a persalis, a piece of forbidden magic that could cut through space similar to the way Antari could do. But unlike the temporary opening made by the Antari, this door could be held open indefinitely, and could let hundreds of killers move instantly from one place to another. The only known persalis was housed on the Ferase Stras, a floating repository of the empire’s most dangerous goods. A group of thieves in the Hand were intent on overcoming the wards on the ship, getting past Captain Maris Patrol and her crew, and stealing the persalis. Then they would be virtually unstoppable.

Meanwhile, in White London, following the death of the previous leader, King Holland Vosijk, a seven-year-old girl named Kosika, bearing the telltale signs of an Antari, had been selected to take his place. She was now 14, and she has begun to see and hear visions of Holland, who advises her. Holland had helped magic return to White London after Osaron wreaked havoc on the worlds, and it is now Kosika’s aim, with Holland’s help, to rekindle the flame. He told her, “I chose you . . . to be my hands. Your magic was once mine. My legacy is yours. I will guide your hands, if you let me. . . . And together, we will do wondrous things.”

Evaluation: Thankfully for fans of the first series, the author goes back and forth in time at various points, reminding readers of some of the backstory.

I was so sad when the original trilogy ended, and beyond delighted that Schwab has picked up the “magical threads” of the story again. Lila, Tes, and Kosika star as strong female leads. Different gender preferences and roles are so well integrated you barely take notice, which in a meta sense is a glorious way to highlight the same humanity in everyone.

This series - both the previous trilogy and the new one in progress, is highly recommended for fantasy fans! ( )