Rating: [rate 4.0]

A murderer is loose in New York City…and the victims are Downworlder children. Clary Fray and her fellow Shadowhunters have a strong suspicion that Valentine, Clary’s father, may be behind he killings. But if he is the murderer, then what’s his true motive? To make matters worse, the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, has been stolen and the mysterious Inquisitor has arrived to investigate, with his eyes vigilantly targeted on Clary’s brother, Jace.

Clary will need to face some terrifying demons and even more terrifying family decisions. No one said that the life of a Shadowhunter would be easy.

And finally, I got to read this book. Talk about resisting from buying the hardbound version and searching high and low for the paperback version just to read this book. :P

City of Ashes picks up some time after City of Bones ended, with Jace trying to forget what he found out and Clary trying to start her life again with her best friend Simon. But being who they are and everyone knowing is not easy, especially when the Lightwoods arrived at the Institute, driving Jace away and Clary coming to his aid, even if he didn’t want to.

I’m going to stop there because if I continue saying anything else about the story it would be a spoiler already. The second book of the Mortal Instruments is just as much as a wild ride as the first one, maybe even better. There were new characters introduced such as Maia, a werewolf, and even fairies who are also tricksters in Cassandra Clare’s world. We meet the ruthless and sort of crazy Inquisitor — who’s really a she, so it may be a typo on the blurb up there — and Max, the youngest Lightwood. There are also the old characters: Magnus Bane, Luke, Raphael the vampire.

There was a point in the novel when it started to feel like there’s so many things happening and that it’s taking too long to get to the actual climax of the story but after a while, it starts to get faster and we get somewhat of a satisfying fight scene with Valentine. We also get to know a bit more of what Clary can do, and I kind of wished she did it more in the novel. Oh, and there was a lot of angst, too, but it wasn’t too much that I didn’t want to read it anymore. The ending was surprising, heartbreaking and yes, very hanging, which is why I don’t know if I can wait for a year before getting a paperback copy of City of Glass. :P

The series shows great promise, and I’m really excited to know what would happen next. :) This series seems a real keeper, and I think I may start to rave about it now since I liked what I read for the past two books. I wonder if someone will ever pick this up to make a movie out of it…or maybe offer some tv deals, but I honestly think it would be hard to give proper justice to the book once it’s made into that. So I’d really rather read the books. :)