*I never got around to reading and reviewing this book. I may do so in the future*

by just reading this excerpt i know i'm going to love ADSOM. the world seems complex and immersive -- really looking forward to it!

“I'd rather die on an adventure than live standing still.”
Why haven't I read this sooner? I want to thank you all for recommending this to me, it was amazing.
I want to start off by saying that I'm bad at reading fantasy (sometimes it's really hard to get into the world and I have such high expectations from fantasy books that I end up disappointed or bored) and even worse at reading hyped books (expectations again), A Darker Shade of Magic can be classified as both, that's why it took me such a long time to read it. But I'm more than happy that I gave it a try because A Darker Shade of Magic delivers in a big way! From the first paragraph, I fell in love with the world, the concept of the world-building is brilliant and highly creative - having four Londons, four parallel towns - and our main character, Kell is one of the two people who can navigate between them, delivering messages from one to another.
Kell shows himself as a very interesting character from the start, his famous coat got me loving him from the start because you have no idea how much love I have for eccentric characters. All my love goes to them. What I adored about him the most was the fact that he was able to make morally ambigous decisions all through the plot, he's flawed, but in the end he tries to do what's best for everyone. His connection with Rhy, the prince, is everything and I assure you you'll love it, I just can't wait to read more about them because their brotp is important to me.
“Lila Bard knew in her bones that she was meant to be a pirate.”
Lila - I didn't expect to love her as much as I did - you see, Victoria Schwab has this way of writing where she connects different perspectives in order to get the plot moving, you don't really know if that character is important for the plot or is there to stay. Therefore, I tried not to get too attached of Lila when she first appeared on the pages of this book because I didn't know if she was going to die as soon as chapter 10, but I fell in love with her anyway. Lila Bard is a thief with high aspirations, Lila Bard is a woman who takes no shit from anyone and does what she wants. I related to her because she was searching for an adventure, after trying only to survive all her life, helping Kell seemed like her adventure, like finally finding something great that she could invest her time and skills into. Her connection with Kell was amazing, they were supporting each other the whole time and really they were each other 'good luck' *wink* *wink*, if you get what I mean .
Rhy is a sweetheart, I wanted to hug him all through the book, his love for Kell and his loyalty to him and I really need to read the second book because there wasn't enough of Rhy.
The plot - was filled with enigmatic villains and co-lateral victims and everyone had something to say in the action, literary everybody was involved and I loved how the four Londons came into the picture through different characters, I'm really excited for when it will possible again to navigate through the four Londons (I hope it happens) because it was great to see Lila interact with the people from Red London. I hated the twins with all my heart, but I will admit that I thought they were fascinating, especially Astrid, a well written woman - be it a villain - is a plus for me all the time. Holland - i still cry.
All in all, this became an instant favourite for me and I have huge expectations from the second book, which I really hope will be able to stand up to this one.