City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

Genre: Fantasy Fiction/Novel
Age Range: 12 and up
Summary: Clary and Jace are battling Valentine once again. It seems to be race between them and Valentine to see who can collect all of the Mortal Instruments before the other. Valentine starts to attack the Downworlders with his army of demons trying to harness all of their individual powers. He needs these powers to activate the Mortal Instruments. Having already collected the Mortal Cup from Clary he is in the lead. But when the City of Ashes is attacked and only one thing is missing, Clary and the Shadowhunters know what he is up to. The only thing missing? The Immortal Sword. Now, Valentine has two of the Immortal Instruments. Jace continues to struggle with the fact that Valentine is his father. He continues to think that he is a dark angel and that he should go to work for his father because he feels that is what he was designed to do. Clary struggles with watching Jace struggle because she cares for him so much. This is another source of awkwardness throughout the novel because Clary and Jace began to like each other before they discovered they were related. Now that they are brother and sister, they have to ignore those feelings already felt. Eventually, a war is broken out on Valentine's boat against the good Shadowhunters and the demons Valentine has summoned from all of the other dimensions. It comes down to Clary to save the day for Jace is so conflicted he isn't much help. Clary, while trying to destroy the ship, succeeds in doing so because she finds she has the ability to create new runes. She has no idea where she got this gift, but now Valentine wants her on his side more than ever. The ship is destroyed and Valentine escapes the final scene once again. City of Ashes is probably the most provoking novel in Clare's series because it simply leaves the reader hanging. Clary, Jace, the other Shadowhunters, none of them really find solace other than the fact that they're all still alive. The best part about this novel is that Clary is the heroine. In the first book, she is seen as being weak and can only really contribute ideas but cannot execute any of them. In this book, Clary saves everyone on the ship. She is the real reason she and all of her friends are alive.