Author: Cassandra Clare
Series: The Mortal Instruments #5
Genres: Supernatural, Action, Young Adult, Romance, Paranormal.
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Released: May 8, 2012
Summary: courtesy of goodreads.com The demon Lilith has been destroyed and Jace has been freed from her captivity. But when the Shadowhunters arrive to rescue him, they find only blood and broken glass. Not only is the boy Clary loves missing–but so is the boy she hates, Sebastian, the son of her father Valentine: a son determined to succeed where their father failed, and bring the Shadowhunters to their knees.
No magic the Clave can summon can locate either boy, but Jace cannot stay away—not from Clary. When they meet again Clary discovers the horror Lilith’s dying magic has wrought—Jace is no longer the boy she loved. He and Sebastian are now bound to each other, and Jace has become what he most feared: a true servant of Valentine’s evil. The Clave is determined to destroy Sebastian, but there is no way to harm one boy without destroying the other. Will the Shadowhunters hesitate to kill one of their own?
Only a small band of Clary and Jace’s friends and family believe that Jace can still be saved — and that the fate of the Shadowhunters’ future may hinge on that salvation. They must defy the Clave and strike out on their own. Alec, Magnus, Simon and Isabelle must work together to save Jace: bargaining with the sinister Faerie Queen, contemplating deals with demons, and turning at last to the Iron Sisters, the reclusive and merciless weapons makers for the Shadowhunters, who tell them that no weapon on this earth can sever the bond between Sebastian and Jace. Their only chance of cutting Jace free is to challenge Heaven and Hell — a risk that could claim any, or all, of their lives.
And they must do it without Clary. For Clary has gone into the heart of darkness, to play a dangerous game utterly alone. The price of losing the game is not just her own life, but Jace’s soul. She’s willing to do anything for Jace, but can she even still trust him? Or is he truly lost? What price is too high to pay, even for love?
Darkness threatens to claim the Shadowhunters in the harrowing fifth book of the Mortal Instruments series.
No magic the Clave can summon can locate either boy, but Jace cannot stay away—not from Clary. When they meet again Clary discovers the horror Lilith’s dying magic has wrought—Jace is no longer the boy she loved. He and Sebastian are now bound to each other, and Jace has become what he most feared: a true servant of Valentine’s evil. The Clave is determined to destroy Sebastian, but there is no way to harm one boy without destroying the other. Will the Shadowhunters hesitate to kill one of their own?
Only a small band of Clary and Jace’s friends and family believe that Jace can still be saved — and that the fate of the Shadowhunters’ future may hinge on that salvation. They must defy the Clave and strike out on their own. Alec, Magnus, Simon and Isabelle must work together to save Jace: bargaining with the sinister Faerie Queen, contemplating deals with demons, and turning at last to the Iron Sisters, the reclusive and merciless weapons makers for the Shadowhunters, who tell them that no weapon on this earth can sever the bond between Sebastian and Jace. Their only chance of cutting Jace free is to challenge Heaven and Hell — a risk that could claim any, or all, of their lives.
And they must do it without Clary. For Clary has gone into the heart of darkness, to play a dangerous game utterly alone. The price of losing the game is not just her own life, but Jace’s soul. She’s willing to do anything for Jace, but can she even still trust him? Or is he truly lost? What price is too high to pay, even for love?
Darkness threatens to claim the Shadowhunters in the harrowing fifth book of the Mortal Instruments series.
For Fans Of: Clockwork Angel, Paranomalcy, Anna Dressed in Blood.
My Review: Note to future self and others, re-read the 4th book in the series before this one. It’s been a really long time since I read the previous book and it took me a bit to get back in the swing of the plot.
City of Lost Souls was slower than I would of liked it to be, compared to the rest of the series. It felt like a filler book. It was more of an information dump than anything. Which is good, don’t get me wrong, but I wanted the action and romance from the others.
There was romance. However Cassandra Clare likes to make Jace and Clary’s relationship hard to obtain. You know they’ll end up together, happy and cute, but she likes stringing it along and that gets frustrating. We had to deal with the ‘brother/sister’ love in the first two books, Jace being possessed by Lilith in the fourth and now Sebastian possessing Jace. I’m wishing for a book where Jace isn’t being possessed so that he and Clary can just be together.
I missed the demon hunting that the gang usually did. In this book, the plot was more focused on the emotions of the characters. Simon was dealing with the return of his sister who had no idea that he was now a vampire, his mom had ‘disowned’ him and he was trying to figure out if Isabelle liked him or not. Alec was in a constant state of worry about his relationship with Mangus, Isabelle worrying about Simon’s attachment to Clary, Clary was only worried about finding Jace and bringing him back from being possessed by Sebastian.
In essence, this book was the book where all the characters grow and develop. If you’re looking for a slow paced read full of drama and a little bit of action, this is a good read. I enjoyed it because this is one of my favorite series, but I was somewhat disappointed after waiting a year.
