The Last Hours series can act as a stand-alone trilogy, but it is definitely enhanced by prior knowledge of the world. And the keeping of those secrets winds up being the thing, even when they're keeping the secrets for what they think of as a good reason and not to hurt others, that sort of morphs and changes their lives,” she said.Īlthough there are 17 other books in Clare’s Shadowhunter universe, newcomers will easily be able to read Chain of Gold without having read any of the prior novels. “All of these characters love each other, care about each other, and have these important bonds, but almost every single one of them is keeping an extremely significant secret. Like all of Clare’s novels, representation is at the forefront of Chain of Gold, as are a number of overarching themes, the main one Clare reveals to be keeping secrets. I feel like those people existed and should be represented.” “It was important to me because there were people in this particular time period, like Anna, who were living lives openly as gay and gender nonconforming. And that's not actually true, progress tends to move ahead and then back,” Clare explains. “We tend to think of progression as just being a straight line forward, with the past sort of all lumped into a general area of not as enlightened as we are now. This, Clare explains, is particularly important. And, while she admits that the Edwardian era was full of great advances, society at this time still held the youth to a specific set of standards - many of which the Shadowhunters in Chain of Gold refuse to adhere to, tossing traditional gender roles of the time to the side without much thought.

Chain of gold