Kayleigh {K-Books}

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.

City of Lost Souls Review on K-Books

"All I know is that I love you. And for the first time, that's good enough."


I really have no idea where to start with this review. The Mortal Instruments is one of my favourite series and I have loved every single one of them. Even when people criticised City of Fallen Angels, I still loved it. City of Lost Souls has me torn.

Jace has been changed. Linked to the one person he hates the most in the world his friends are determined to get the real Jace back. But can they bare to break the law for one person? And when Clary disappears after Jace and sees him happy can she bare to break the link when she has never seen him happier? What is most important to her, to see Jace happy in a life he would rather die than live, or getting the real Jace back?

City of Lost Souls is in some ways the best book of the series so far... and the worst. I know, I know, I'm making no sense. When thinking of the storyline I think this is one of the strongest that Cassie Clare has come up with. The storyline tore at my heart so bad and I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen.
However, this book took me forever to get into. I can usually read a book this size in a day or two. City of Lost Souls took me 11 days to read. That's an insane amount of time for me. I found it slow and it took me a long time to get to a point where I couldn't stop until I was done. This happened at around 70%. The reason for this, I think is that there was so many flipping from different characters point of view. Just when I got totally interested in what was happening with one character, then we were taken away from them and into somebody else's point of view. This was what had me not wanting to read very much.

Another thing I didn't like about this book, and it's actually with all Cassie Clare's books, the length of the chapters. Come on, is there really a need for chapters to be over 50 pages long? They take me forever to get through and personally, I hate HATE stopping reading in the middle of the chapter. Because of this when I read a Cassie Clare book, and this happened particularly in CoLS was that by the time I finally got through a chapter, even though the storyline was so good that I wanted to keep reading, I'd think of the length of the chapter and go: No, I'll just stop now.

The only thing that kept me going in this book was the hope that things would work out in the end and that they would save Jace. The ending completely redeemed this book for me. It was fantastic. fast-paced, action-packed and had my heart stopping and me hanging on the edge of my seat with bated breath to see what was going to happen. This is what we needed throughout the first 70% of the book and not just in the end.

I really liked the characterisation in this book and it really had me starting to like Sebastian. I know, I know, I'm supposed to hate him. AND by the end I did hate him again. I think City of Lost Souls is a big rollercoaster and you really see a different side to a lot of the characters, especially Sebastian and can really sympathise for him.

Now... my favourite part of this book is nothing to actually do with Clary and Jace's journey. It's all the little hints to Infernal Devices. As most people know I am a huge fan of The Infernal Devices series, I think it's much better than this series in my opinion. There were so many links and hints to the ID series in this book and it really had my brain working overtime wondering what that could mean for the events to happen in Clockwork Princess and how it's going to end. I have my theories and conspiracies about what will happen and let's just say I hope I'm wrong because from what I conspire from the hints in City of Lost Souls, Clockwork Princess is not going to end well. I am so annoyed that Clockwork Princess has been put back to March 2013 but whatever, I'll not get into another rant about it.

Overall I thought City of Lost Souls was great. It's such a good book and any fan of Cassandra Clare will love this book. It's a great instalment of the series and I can't wait to see how it's going to end. Cassandra Clare is still one of my favourite authors and personally I think it was just my issue with the POV hopping so much that had me reading very slowly. I still loved it and would still recommend this series to any Urban Fantasy and YA fan.

"It's like there's always been a piece of my soul missing, and it's inside of you, Clary."