City of Heavenly Fire

I am really proud of myself, after a very long time of promising to read The Mortal Instruments series I have in the last few months managed to work my way through all 6 books and can now finally understand what all the hype is about with this story.

It's been a really long journey from City of Bones to City of Heavenly Fire and along the way we have fallen in love with some wonderful characters, hated others and had lots of shouting at the pages moments. This book had to pull together all the strands of Jace and Clary's story and bring them to a conclusion and give us a satisfying feeling about their endings together.

The first really exciting thing in this book was the introduction of new characters from the Los Angeles institute. Emma Carstairs is the heroine of Clare's newer series The Dark Artifices and to see her story introduced in Heavenly Fire was lovely and I liked her immediately. I love that we have been given a glimpse of what is to come and I feel as I begin to read Lady Midnight it will be lovely to enhance her story and watch it grow.

I also loved the merging of Infernal Devices favourites in this book, for most people The Infernal Devices holds a special place in their hearts and to have their involvement in this story was so exciting and the parts of the book in which they featured were some of the real high points in this story and made it even more special.

As for our main cast they are all front and centre in this story and are still trying desperately to chase down and stop Clary's evil brother Sebastian who is trying to wage war on the Shadowhunters. From this perspective I have to be honest I am glad to see the end of this story. At points I felt it was never going to end. I have truly loved the stories of many of the characters in these books, Simon Lewis is a bonafide legend and I hold a special place for him and this book really brought his story full circle. Whether I felt it was the best ending for him I'm not quite sure, I can understand the idea Clare had but I loved my Daylighter and I'm a little unsure as to whether this was the right ending for my beloved vampire.

I am thrilled to see Alec and Magnus also reach a place where they are at peace with their relationship and ready to move forward into the future. They have been an absolute joy in this series, by far my favourite couple. You just root for them. Magnus Bane is one of Clare's most masterful creations and I could read about him all day long. I love the way we introduced the premise for The Bane Chronicles novel and I am excited now to read Magnus' stories from his 400 year long life.

The ending of this series was eminently satisfying and a wonderful conclusion where all the loose ends were tied up neatly whilst paving the way for The Dark Artifices to begin. On the whole I liked this series but I certainly didn't love it in the same way I did The Infernal Devices, there are characters I loved but equally others who didn't set me alight. I only gave it 4 out of 5 because fundamentally it is not the equal of The Infernal Devices books but it was still one of the strongest books of this series.