City of Heavenly Fire

The Mortal Instruments, Book #6

By Cassandra Clare

ISBN# 9781481425988

Author’s Website: cassandraclare.com

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi

Review

The Clave is desperately trying to locate Sebastian, but he’s always a few steps ahead.  He orchestrates a systematic attack on several of the institutes, turning the Shadowhunters into his Endarkened and growing his army.

Sebastian is about to declare war on the Nephilim, but he’s willing to make a deal if the Clave will hand Clary and Jace over to him.  He wants his family and will stop at nothing to have Clary rule beside him.  Now the Clave has a decision to make … sacrifice these two children to save the rest of their race or fight a losing war.

Meanwhile, Jace is trying to learn how to control the Heavenly Fire that is burning through his veins.  It is the one thing that can hurt Sebastian, if only Jace can learn to wield it.

“Jace was probably the safest boyfriend in the world since he was pretty much banned from (1) getting angry, (2) making sexual advances, and (3) doing anything that would produce an adrenaline rush.”

And when Sebastian takes hostages, Jace, Clary, and their friends must take action to try to find him.  They may have to go to hell and back to save the day.  But can they survive it?

This was a decent read, although it was not my favorite of the series.  At over 700 pages, I think there is some stuff that could have been edited down a bit, especially the epilogue.  I found the epilogue to have a lot of nothiness going on, it wasn’t what I was expecting at all.  No looks further down the line for the characters’ happily ever afters and no loose ends tied up.

We did finally get some Jace and Clary time when Jace is thankfully himself, in this book.  And he is just so sweet.  Their time by the lake in Edom was surprisingly a favorite scene of mine.

We have several couples finally giving in to their feelings, but we also have a lot of loss in this novel as well.  I was surprised at how many characters we lost in this book.  And, one I was hoping could be saved.  There has to be some kind of redemption, right? Maybe not.

I didn’t like that this book left me with a lot of questions.  A big one … is the heavenly fire now used up?  Or did it stay where it’s currently housed just waiting to be used again? 

And I want to know more about Emma and Jules.  I assume we’ll get more of them in the other connected series.  At least, I hope so.  They were sweet and innocent and I truly enjoyed them. 

I’m assuming that the connected series is why this book and series really didn’t feel complete.  I will continue onward with the series of this world and see how it all shakes out!