Review of The Shadow Cabinet by Maureen Johnson

Series: Shades Of London #3
Genres: Paranormal, Mystery
Pages: 374
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Release Date: 05/02/2018
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Grieving, shaken, and feeling very much alone, Rory's life as a member of the Shades of London has changed irrevocably. It's only been a matter of hours since Stephen was taken from her, possibly for ever. Her classmate Charlotte is still missing, kidnapped by the same people who tried to take Rory. Rory is no longer a schoolgirl haplessly involved in the dealings of a secret government unit. She is their weapon in a matter of life and death. 

With hardly a moment to think for herself, Rory is back to work. Charlotte must be found - as must Stephen, if he is even out there. Lines must be drawn and forces rallied. Something is brewing under London, something bigger and much more dangerous than what has come before. The Shadow Cabinet holds the key to everything, and it is up to Rory to unravel its mysteries before time runs out...

I've just finished watching American Horror Story: Cult. I hate American Horror Story but I watch it anyway, even though the plot is always stupid, predictable and feels a lot like the writer was sucking themselves off. But anyway that is important because I really really hated AHS: Cult, I can't stand reading or watching stuff about cults. So I was in luck when I picked this book up, because it was all about cults too! RIP my sanity.

The original book held so much promise about what the story could become, without feeling cheesy. I thought it was going to be like Life On Mars (you should watch that), where they investigate weird crimes involving ghosts. Well book two destroyed all hopes of that and all I could hope for for book three was that it wouldn't be as bad. It's not, but the cheese fest is upped so painfully that at one point my ears actually started leaking cheese (trufacts).

The general idea is to quickly clean up the mess that was book two by linking it to book 3 as much as possible and just in case you don't remember it, Rory spends the majority of her time rehashing every event, which is my number 1 most hated trope. I hate it more than insta-love. I do love Rory's thoughts about England but her stories about her famly started to be repetative, as in, she literally told the same stories from previous books. I have a relative that does that. It's annoying as hell.

I'd write more about the story but... I'm struggling to work out if there is one. There's a mysterious cult, Charlotte's gone missing, there's a couple of blonde twins I don't care about and this whole thing about shiny Egyptian rocks. Without spoilers that's literally the whole book. There's a mild cliffhanger and no book 4 but I'm not even sure if I would choose to pick up book four at this point, as there's no redeeming this series.

 I feel like if you start a book series around the theme of Jack The Ripper with bloody, gory murder you kinda have to follow on from that with a similar theme? Throwing a cult into the mix was uexpected and not at all welcome, and it was even worse that it went on for two books and now four, as this is definitely continuing into the next book. I've stopped caring about any of the characters as most of them have become cardboard background characters anyway.