Cassandra Clare opened the final trilogy of her Shadowhunter Chronicles this month with "The Last King of Faerie," the first installment of a new series called The Wicked Powers that promises to close out a franchise she's been building for two decades.
The 576-page novel, published Nov. 3 by Knopf Books for Young Readers, follows Drusilla "Dru" Blackthorn, a fourth-year student at Shadowhunter Academy who is kidnapped after a chance meeting at a nightclub and held in Faerie by Prince Ash Morgenstern — drawn to him even as the danger around her grows. In a parallel thread, a sudden disappearance forces Kit Herondale and Ty Blackthorn to set aside years of bitterness and go on a dangerous quest together.
Closing out a franchise built over two decades
Publishers Weekly called the book "a sweeping, high-stakes epic," adding that "longtime series fans will be richly rewarded by this vibrant offering." That's no small claim: since Clare launched the Shadowhunter world with "City of Bones" in 2007, the Shadowhunter Chronicles and her other books have sold more than 50 million copies worldwide, translated into more than 35 languages, spawning a TV adaptation and a devoted fan base that has followed three generations of Shadowhunter characters across the Mortal Instruments, Infernal Devices and Dark Artifices series.
"The Last King of Faerie" picks up characters first introduced in the Dark Artifices trilogy, meaning new readers may want to start further back in the timeline — but for a fan base that has stayed with Clare's interlocking cast for years, that continuity is part of the appeal rather than a barrier.
The book arrives as the broader young-adult fantasy market leans harder into the romance-infused "romantasy" wave that writers like Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros have turned into one of publishing's most reliable commercial categories over the past few years — a genre Clare's own books, with their slow-burn pairings and high body counts, helped establish well before the label existed. The audiobook edition runs 17 hours and 46 minutes, long even by the standards of a series known for door-stopper installments.
Clare has not announced a publication date for the second book in The Wicked Powers, though the trilogy format suggests two more volumes are still to come before the Shadowhunter Chronicles reach their stated end.
