City of Lost Souls

City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Summary (From Back Cover)
Jace is now a servant of evil, bound for all eternity to Sebastian. Only a small band of Shadowhunters believe he can be saved. To do this they must defy the Clave. And they must act without Clary. For Clary is playing a dangerous game utterly alone. The price of losing is not just her own life, but Jace's soul. Clary is willing to do anything for Jace, but can she still trust him? Or is he truly lost?
What price is too high to pay, even for love?

Review
Book number five is The Mortal Instruments series. It's also the penultimate and most recent instalment of Shadowhunters and Downworlders. I'm not going to lie, after being a tincey disappointed in City of Fallen Angels I was reluctant to even read this one. However, I'm glad I did, even if it was a little slow getting off the ground.

Lets start with the plot... This book takes place two weeks after the last one finished, the Clave are up in arms about Sebastian and Jace's vanishing act and have been working non-stop to find them. However, downworlders are being killed and the wardings are being disabled taking the Claves focus away from finding the love of Clary's life. And if there's one thing we can count on is that when Clary is told to stop she's going to push forward and break about a million laws along the way. There are several other underlining plot stories going on, mainly to do with the love lives of the characters in the book as well as delving a little deeper into the Fearie and Vampire worlds.

There's a HUGE focus on the character's love lives in this book, I think the only character not getting some was Mrs Lightwood. Maia and Jordan get closer in this book and so does Simon and Isabell. Simbell, is quickly becoming my favourite coupling, I think this may have had something to do with Simon reciting the entirety of Star Wars to her as a bedtime story! Alec and Mangus are on thin ice and Alec's new connection with the warlocks ex Camille isn't helping matters.

It wasn't until about half way through the book that it started picking up. I think that the lack of Jace, however winey he may be becoming, hinders the first part of the story. Give the reader what they want and all that.

Overall it was an okay read, and the character's and story are developing nicely. Although I'm not loving these books as much as I did when I started them. I hope the last instalment, City of Heavenly Fire (out later this year), has something more to offer than the last two books and answers some of the questions left unanswered so far. I'll be pretty damn annoyed if it doesn't!