Wardrobes in Every Bedroom!

#12 A book with a lion, a witch, or a wardrobe

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

Clockwork Angel has long intrigued me with its cover: London in the background, a young man clearly in period clothing in the foreground. And yet I've never been all that interested in books with vampires and underground supernatural worlds, for all that I love Harry Potter and other fantasy. So it is rather surprising--to me--that I would pick up Clockwork Angel. (Most irritatingly as I cannot type 'angel' without first typing 'angle'....Every. Single. Time.)

Two instances (dare I say coincidences?) conspired to place this book in my hands. Yea, three did spin their web. First, I was on the hunt for a hardback book to read while partaking of a brisk walk on the treadmill at the gym. My cardio exercise is currently limited to walking in order to spare my back further pain, and walking on a treadmill for an hour with nothing to occupy my brain is, well, mind-numbing. Sometimes I take my Kindle (until that fateful night when I left my Kindle at the gym without realizing it and spent an agonizing two weeks trying to find it at home, at work, in the car); sometimes I use the Kindle app on my phone, but oh! that small screen isn't fun to stare at while walking briskly. Then came the day I discovered that I could hold a hardback in place with a fridge clip magnet. Brilliant! Now I must find hardback books to read! Good thing I work in a library, eh?

A perk of working in a library is that you get to see all the new, incoming books before anyone else (other than your colleagues). I periodically peruse any carts bearing said newly purchased books looking for my next victim...er...book. And lo! There sat the first three books in The Infernal Devices series. Staring at me with their shiny-lettered spines. (Yes, I admit to being distracted by shiny letters. Sue me.) Thus the second instance was convenience of location combined with something shiny.

The third and final spin of the web can be summed up in one word: curiosity. I just plain wanted to know the story behind the cover. Good marketing...it works.

My curiosity was not disappointed. Before I knew it that first night Clockwork Angel joined me at the gym, three-and-a-half miles passed below my feet. Ten miles and three days later I was done. And was pitifully begging for a rush to be put on the second book, Clockwork Prince, so that I could begin devouring it. A book where things are not as they seem, a young woman's world is turned upside down and she finds herself rising to the occasion, questions asked and clues tracked down, love, betrayal, family, and--of course--the whole reason for this post...wardrobes in every bedroom. Huzzah!