Book Review :: The Red Scrolls of Magic, by Cassandra Clare and Wesley Chu

The Red Scrolls of Magic by Cassandra Clare, Wesley Chu
ISBN: 1471162141
Series: The Eldest Curses #1
Also in this series: The Lost Book of the White
Published by HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster
on 2019-04-09
Genres: Fantasy, Supernatural, Young Adult
Pages: 350
Source: HarperCollins NZ, Simon and Schuster
Goodreads

All Magnus Bane wanted was a vacation—a lavish trip across Europe with Alec Lightwood, the Shadowhunter who against all odds is finally his boyfriend. But as soon as the pair settles in Paris, an old friend arrives with news about a demon-worshipping cult called the Crimson Hand that is bent on causing chaos around the world. A cult that was apparently founded by Magnus himself. Years ago. As a joke.

Now Magnus and Alec must race across Europe to track down the Crimson Hand and its elusive new leader before the cult can cause any more damage. As if it wasn’t bad enough that their romantic getaway has been sidetracked, demons are now dogging their every step, and it is becoming harder to tell friend from foe. As their quest for answers becomes increasingly dire, Magnus and Alec will have to trust each other more than ever—even if it means revealing the secrets they’ve both been keeping.

Last updated on 23 January 2026

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What is The Red Scrolls of Magic by Cassandra Clare and Wesley Chu about?

Back in The Mortal Instruments series, between City of Glass and City of Fallen Angels, there’s a time when newly boyfriend-ed Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood head off to Europe for a vacation. In The Mortal Instruments, we don’t even really find out what they got up to in Europe, or even really where they spent their time. It was a little nudge open of a door by Cassandra Clare for this story to become a book series; what really went on with Malec in Europe? We finally found out in The Red Scrolls of Magic, which is the first in a new series co-authored with Wesley Chu, The Eldest Curses.

Magnus and Alec start off their European adventure in Paris, where a hot air balloon ride goes wrong, romantic dinners are ruined and demons run wild in the city. The usual Shadowhunter drama. There they discover that there is a demon-worshipping cult called the Crimson Hand, and lo’ and behold, Magnus was the one who started it – as a joke! – way back in the day with Ragnor Fell, a fellow warlock. Tessa Gray (from The Infernal Devices series) shows up to give them this information, and tasks Magnus and Alec with the job of tracking down the leader, Great Poison, and putting a stop to the cult.

The Red Scrolls of Magic follow Magnus and Alec from Paris to Venice to Rome to collect as many details as they can, attend lavish parties, dress fashionably, make allies with ex-cult members, and even run into characters such as Helen Blackthorn from The Dark Artifices series. Eventually their ‘vacation’ comes to an end, but not without a few bumps, twists and turns along the way.

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My thoughts on The Red Scrolls of Magic

I really enjoyed this book, and was super excited when it arrived from the publishers and it was only around 350 pages long. If you recall, my last Cassandra Clare book was Queen of Air and Darkness and that door-stop was nearly 800 pages and took an age to get through. Hello, yes please, more short tales like this! At least for a time!

“It’s a classical love story. I hit on him at a party, he asked me out, then we fought an epic magical battle between good and evil side by side, and now we need a vacation.” – Magnus

The plot of this story couldn’t be any more ‘Magnus’ if it tried. Of course there’s a cult running wild in Europe because Magnus created it as a joke back in the day with his warlock friend. Of course that would happened to Magnus, and of course he would be his usual amazing, bedazzled self in trying to fix his accidental demon-worshipping group of psychos.

I loved the way that Alec and Magnus gallivanted around Europe (something we haven’t seen in a Shadowhunters book yet – they’re all set in either America or England), and it was really neat seeing some of the other Institutes around the world. Intermingled with the disbanding-of-the-cult plot was this sense that Alec and Magnus are newly together, having just fought a great war, and they’re trying to figure out this whole relationship thing, especially seeing as it’s frowned upon, Alec being a Shadowhunter and Magnus being a Downworlder. The ‘normality’ of two people in love amongst the chaos of impending cult-ish doom was really sweet.

Both my favourite aspect and the reason I lowered it from a 4 stars to a 3.5 was the inclusion of some of the characters from other Shadowhunter books. As I’ve mentioned, Tessa Gray plays a part in this story (also quick shout out to Magnus and Tessa’s century-spanning friendship), but as do characters we’ve met over the course of the last 12 years (since City of Bones was released), including Raphael Santiago from The Mortal Instruments, and Johnny Rook from The Dark Artifices. We also get to see Helen Blackthorn meeting and working with Aline Penhallow for the first time. In The Dark Artifices we learn that they eventually get married, but we didn’t see how they met at all. While the four characters (the two girls and Magnus and Alec) swear at the end of book never to talk about the events that occur, it was really neat seeing how Helen and Aline got to know each other.

Having said that, and here’s my reason for dropping the rating a little, some of the characters, including Helen and Aline, seemed a little off to me. They said things that I wasn’t quite sure were in character with how we know them in ‘present’ time (remember, we’ve jumped back to book 3/4 in The Mortal Instruments series on the trip), and while I understand that the characters we know ‘now’ are grown up and older, they still seemed not quite right. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there were definitely times when I thought ‘really?’ when there was dialogue that was a little jarring. Perhaps it’s because it’s co-penned.

Overall, however, really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to the second and third books in The Eldest Curses series: The Lost Book of the White (2020), and The Black Volume of the Dead (2021) respectively. It’ll be interesting to see where these next in the series fit in the timeline, alongside the other books that have already been out for years.

If you’re a fan of the Shadowhunter world, or just Malec, then I do recommend picking up The Red Scrolls of Magic if you haven’t already!

Have you read it? What did you think? 

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I received a copy of this book from HarperCollins NZ and Simon & Schuster Aus in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinions or thoughts on the book.