Reading challenge #1: A book published this year

The Shadow Cabinet, Maureen Johnson

The first book I finished this year starts me off nicely, because it’s “A book published this year”: The Shadow Cabinet, by Maureen Johnson, which was published on the 5th of February.

The Shadow Cabinet is the third book in Maureen Johnson’s Shades of London series, after The Name of the Star and The Madness Underneath.  I was in a bit of a reading fug, failing to finish one book after another for no particular reason.  And then I was given this – actually I was given it to pass on to a friend, but I intercepted it, read two thirds that afternoon, finished it two mornings later, on my way to work.  Maureen Johnson’s books always do this to me: Devilish saw me through an otherwise-potentially-very-stressful train ride home from Paris in the snow, Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes had me sitting on the back step until it was too dark to see, but reluctant to move because I would have to stop reading.  This time, I was almost late for my boxercise class, too desperate to know what would happen next to keep track of the time and saved only by a text from my dad.

I don’t want to say anything about the plot, because of spoilers for the previous two, but it is gripping and clever and wonderful, so get your hands on it as fast as you can!

Other categories that The Shadow Cabinet fits into: a book by a female author, a mystery or thriller, a book set in high school (kind of), a book that made you cry, a book that takes place in your hometown, a book set during Christmas (kind of)

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