City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
Published: March 28, 2008

Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what’s normal when you’re a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who’s becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn’t ready to let her go—especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary’s only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil—and also her father.

To complicate matters, someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings—and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop Valentine if Jace is willing to betray everything he believes in to help their father?

In this breathtaking sequel to City of Bones, Cassandra Clare lures readers back into the dark grip of New York City’s Downworld, where love is never safe and power becomes the deadliest temptation.

Hello everyone! I am back into the swing of things and I’m so happy that all of you are still reading along with us! Taylor has been doing a GREAT job of keeping things going as I try to keep my life going. Wedding planning is so much harder than I thought it would be and adulting is something I wish I could take a break from but I’ve missed writing about books so I thought I’d back track to as far as I can remember and write through all the books I’ve read since I’ve been MIA and we start with this lovely little thing.

City of Ashes picks up I do believe a couple months after City of Bones. And this book, I didn’t like it as much as City of Bones but it definitely impressed me, more so towards the end of this book. So the book begins with this really mysterious beginning with Valentine doing some sort of ritual in a pentagram with like some sort of sacrifice. And I was just sitting there thinking Okay Cassandra Clare…you’ve got my attention…

After that, the book kind of just was a big bunch of ups and downs for me. So I loved meeting Isabel and Alec’s mother and father, I think they really weren’t what I was expecting but enjoyed them, especially in the end of the book. And I actually enjoyed the unraveling of Imogen’s story. It kind of reminded me of Umbridge but at the end I didn’t hate her as much because her story is …a bit rough and I kind of sympathized with her a bit. But I thought she was a great new character. I also enjoyed Maya in this series and that we got to see more of the werewolves in this book! I’ve been in like a werewolf love fest lately.

But I think the only major part of this book that I didn’t enjoy, and I’m noticing a lot of others didn’t either is the whole Clary and Jace dynamic of them feeling like they like each other but they’re brother and sister which is kind of creepy and I just really hope this series kind of maneuvers around and Jace is magically not really related or something of the sort. I HATED the Simon and Clary dynamic in this as well.

I loved that we got to see Maryse kick ass though! I hope we get to see a lot more of her in the rest of the series I think she’s bad ass and might be my newest favorite…I still ship Magnus and Alec over everything and anything.