City Of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare

Many of us in the shadowhunter fandom have been highly anticipating the outcome of the final book of The Mortal Instruments series, City Of Heavenly Fire, I've been waiting two years, well slightly under two years for the release of this epic conclusion and boy was I surprised when it turned up four days before the UK initial release date. So here begins my breakdown of CoHF, I'm probably going to spoilerfy this review so don't read on unless you've already read it or if you just want to know what happens knowing spoilers will be visible.

Clary, Jace, Simon, Isabelle, and Alec must prepare to reclaim the shadowhunters victory by defeating Sebastian, Clary's own brother, and his Dark Army before the world starts to turn to ash. 

People will die, alliances will be made, other will be betrayed.

It's been awhile since I've been in the shadow hunter world, the last book I've read being Clockwork Princess, but luckily I was prompted by Cassandra Clare with her quick recaps over what had happened previously. Like the two previous books, City of Fallen Angels and City of Lost Souls, we were given other point of views other than Clary, these consisted of chapters from the eyes of Emma Carstairs, Jordan, Maia, Magnus, Sebastian, and the Seelie Queen, a very large variation of characters giving us the insight of what they're up to knowing that the other characters will be totally unaware of each others actions. All these point of views are vital to the reader to follow each and every character and how their decisions will affect the epic conclusion, if you look closely you'll be able to see what's going to happen a mile away but if you let your guard down you won't see it coming at all.

At first I found the prologue to be quite slow paced, this was probably due to being introduced to another new character, one that is very important, Emma Carstairs, and the Blackthorn family are the new characters we will be following in the next shadowhunter series, The Dark Artifices, set five years from the events in The Mortal Instruments. So it's no wonder that we were introduced to them early on and see there younger selves and how these events will affect there day to day life in The Dark Artifices. At times I did want to skip these parts but as I mentioned before these point of views are very vital in the story telling process and how they connect to each other.

We were also introduced to old characters, and I mean really really old characters, yes thats right you guessed it... Brother Zachariah, aka Jem, and not forgetting Tessa. I was so happy to find out that these two would be appearing in CoHF, I just love how these characters are constantly crossing over into all the shadowhunter series and how they react to some certain characters. I especially can't wait to read about their upcoming adventures, though I was sad to learn my copy of CoHF didn't have the exclusive comic of Jem and Tessa's wedding, so it looks like I'm going to have to find a copy in a bookstore and just read it in there!

I've read quite a few reviews already about this topic, which is about how the characters react to other character deaths, and that is simply because they have no time to mourn the dead. They've been through so much already that they need to pull all their strength together to beat Sebastian and his Dark Army before their emotions consume them. Though it is evident they struggle to contain their emotions throughout, which causes arguments to break out and not seeing eye to eye over tactics. 

Something that the Clave tended to overlook was Clary's relationship with Sebastian and that she is the key over defeating him. I'm guessing after the event of CoHF they've got some major restructuring to do within the Clave and how they handle threats previously made towards them.

Now its time to discuss the six deaths that could be inevitably prevented, some who I had predicted there deaths months ago. Once I read through each death I didn't feel any emotion towards any of them, other than the last one, but I suppose you can only resurrect a certain amount of times otherwise it becomes predictable and less of a shock. Some of you may know who I'm talking about, which leads to the next part, something that I could not process what was happening, the majority of that time I was thinking is this real...

Two words, Part Two, yes I said two twice, now it's three times, anyway that scared the hell out of me I was pretty much thinking they had gone into some alternative universe, seeing that they entered a demon realm maybe this universe was their hell. But no it was just a demon messing with their inner emotions, Clary's alternate reality was just perfection, I mean from reading that scene I could tell this is totally going to become a fanfic right now. Cassandra Clare is such a tease, messing with us like that!

But when my emotions were at there highest it was the last chapter and well the majority of the epilogue, I did not expect any of that coming at all. Though I did have a theory a certain character would become mortal again, so I was right about that but not about the process in which that would happen. It was heartbreaking to see these characters interact and knowing the other has no memory of the other, that was just a stab in the heart, its something that no-one should go through, especially after all they've been through. 

So now it's finally over, its kind of sad knowing that we'll never read about these characters again, but I can't wait to see the characters who survived City of Heavenly Fire appear in the next shadowhunter series, which of course as you know by now will be The Dark Artifices. I think CoHF is one of my new favourites in the series, though it does come in third place, second is City of Glass and first is City of Bones. The characters were very well written and definitely developed over the course of the book, considering how far they've all come on this journey together. I really like how we were given a bittersweet ending that I believe that everyone will approve of, as many people have already said its a sad, but happy ending.

Thank you Cassandra Clare for this amazing universe you have created and keep on creating, I look forward to reading all the other shadowhunter series you plan to bring out.

*****

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You can get City Of Heavenly Fire online or at your nearest available bookstore.
I brought my copy which I preordered from The Book Depository.