Magnus Bane Is Getting A New Trilogy — For Adults

Reading Young Adult fiction is great at any age — but not everybody knows that. A few disparaging (and pretty closed-minded) comments from writers like Jonathan Franzen on YA have made adults self-conscious about browsing the YA shelf. So the news that YA author Cassandra Clare is writing adult fiction is great: it will give people who don't read YA a chance to meet Clare's fantastic characters, and it will mark a step towards bridging the YA/adult gap.

Cassandra Clare is the author behind The Mortal Instruments: the YA series that inspired the popular TV show Shadowhunters. One of the most beloved characters is Magnus Bane, an immortal warlock with a mysterious background — and it seems like he's one of Clare's favorites to write about, too. In 2014, Clare released The Bane Chronicles , a compilation of short stories around this intriguing character — and now Clare's decided it's time to dig even deeper into his past.

Magnus Bane has been such a successful character so far that it makes total sense Clare wants to introduce him to a wider audience. By making him the star of an adult trilogy, a ton of new readers will get hooked in — and once they've met Magnus, I'm willing to bet they'll be a lot less reluctant to go back and read his YA roots, too. And anything that gets more adults hopping on the YA train is good news to me!

Magnus' leap to adult literature is also great news for readers that loved him from the start. By the time the as-yet-unnamed trilogy comes out, it will have been ten whole years since Magnus first burst onto our bookshelves in City of Bones. If you met him as a young child, you'll be a whole decade older and wiser — and ready to read about Magnus in a whole new context.

The first book in Cassandra Clare's new trilogy will come out in November 2017 from Saga Press, so it's a long wait. Luckily, there's hope we'll get a second season of Shadowhunters in the meantime!