Magnus Bane founded the cult himself, years ago, as a joke. That one line of setup is the best idea in the book and the reason this audiobook is more entertaining than its premise promises, because a demon-worshipping order called the Crimson Hand is now doing real damage across Europe in the name of a warlock who invented it to amuse himself. He wanted a holiday. He and Alec Lightwood get as far as Paris before an old friend turns up with the news, and the vacation becomes a continental chase after Magnus's own punchline.
What Cassandra Clare Delivers
Wesley Chu is named in the second paragraph of this record's own description as the book's co-author, and his name appears nowhere in the byline field. The copy could not be clearer: from Cassandra Clare and award-winner Wesley Chu comes the first book in a new series. A browser reading the credit line alone would take this for a solo Clare novel, which it is not, and the omission costs more in audio than in print, because a listener never sees a title page and the credit line is the only attribution on offer. Whoever built this record read past the sentence that contradicts it.
Slow start is the phrase the May 2023 four-star reaches for, and the arithmetic makes that response more load-bearing than one deduction usually is. Six ratings produce a 4.7, which requires a total of exactly 28 stars from a maximum of 30, since no other whole number displays that figure. The five visible grades total 24, four fives and a four. If those five sit inside the six, the untexted vote is also a four. One caveat belongs with that: one of the five was filed in Canada, and whether a given marketplace panel counts it is not a thing this record reveals.
What Cassandra Clare Gets Right
Downworlder perspective is what the October 2020 five-star came for, and it gives the clearest statement of this book's appeal to be found on this record. That response likes the Shadowhunter cast well enough, naming Clary, Jace, Tessa, Will and Jem in passing, but had always wanted more of Magnus, and describes arriving at Alec with the same reserve and caution the character shows everyone else, then losing it over the course of the book. Watching a reader's relationship with Alec change across ten hours is a fair summary of what this volume exists to do. The series is called The Eldest Curses; the subject is the couple.
Europe does more work here than a change of scenery usually manages. Magnus and Alec set out on a lavish trip, settle in Paris, and are handed the Crimson Hand within pages. What follows is a race across the continent with demons dogging their steps and the friend-or-foe question degrading as they go. Structurally it is a road trip with a deadline, which suits a couple who need enforced proximity to reach the conversation the plot keeps interrupting. Both of them are keeping something back. The chase exists to make those secrets expensive, and the pacing rarely lets either of them sit still long enough to volunteer one.
Where Cassandra Clare Loses Some Ground
Format is the thing to notice about the most detailed response on this page. The five-star of April 14, 2019 opens by laying out its own reading history: seven chapters on Riveted, a hard copy on the way in a subscription box, and the ebook bought and finished inside a day. It also performs a genuine service for browsers, reassuring anyone unsettled by the book's original New Adult positioning that nothing here runs more explicit than the rest of the Shadowhunter Chronicles, and it begins to qualify the publisher's claim that this volume can be read on its own before the excerpt cuts off mid-sentence.
BD Wong takes the recording, all ten hours and forty-eight minutes of it, and what this column grades is the prose. That carries more weight on this record than on most, because Magnus is a voice-driven character whose comedy lives entirely in timing and whose sincerity has to cut through several layers of flippancy to land. The distance between a reader who can do that and one who cannot is the whole difference between these ten hours and the paperback, and no amount of scrolling will settle it. The sample is where a buyer finds out, and on this record it is the only place to look.
Who Should Pick Up The Red Scrolls of Magic
Shadowhunter readers who have wanted this pairing at the center rather than off to the side are the obvious buyers, and the December 2023 five-star filed from Canada puts the case about as bluntly as it can be put: in that reader's view the whole Mortal Instruments storyline should simply focus on Alec and Magnus. The same response, sitting on the first volume's page, is praising the second and already waiting for the third, which is worth flagging plainly. Part of what this badge measures is enthusiasm for a series rather than a verdict on this particular book.
Entry-point buyers are the wrong customer for this record, whatever the launch language implies. The description does sell it as the opening of a new series, and technically it is, but the story sits inside an established universe whose cast, factions and history the copy never pauses to explain. Anyone who has never met Magnus or Alec will follow the chase and miss the point of it. Listeners who want the romance to be the plot rather than the pressure on it should also know that the cult business takes up real estate. The record itself gives the honest label in its own second paragraph: a Shadowhunters novel.
The Short Version
- Performance: BD Wong reads a novel the byline credits to one author and the description credits to two.
- What it covers: A sidelined couple moved to the center, a joke that grew teeth, secrets between partners, a cross-continent chase
- Feel: Swashbuckling and warm, with an expensive itinerary
- Our call: Worth the ten hours for Magnus and Alec, and only if the wider Shadowhunter world is already familiar.
Before You Listen
How explicit is this audiobook?
The record is filed under teen and young adult and carries no content advisory of any kind. The description promises swoon-worthy romance and abundant action, quoting a trade review, then stops. Buyers who want something firmer than a genre tag will not find it anywhere on this listing.
Is the audiobook a full-cast production?
No. One narrator is credited for the entire ten hours and forty-eight minutes, published by Simon and Schuster Audio in April 2019. A chase novel that moves between cities and introduces allies and enemies along the way is handled by a single voice, which is worth knowing if you expected an ensemble treatment.
