City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

City of Lost Souls:
What price is too high to pay, even for love? When Jace and Clary meet again, Clary is horrified to discover that the demon Lilith’s magic has bound her beloved Jace together with her evil brother Sebastian, and that Jace has become a servant of evil. The Clave is out to destroy Sebastian, but there is no way to harm one boy without destroying the other. As Alec, Magnus, Simon, and Isabelle wheedle and bargain with Seelies, demons, and the merciless Iron Sisters to try to save Jace, Clary plays a dangerous game of her own. The price of losing is not just her own life, but Jace’s soul. She’s willing to do anything for Jace, but can she still trust him? Or is he truly lost?

Love. Blood. Betrayal. Revenge. Darkness threatens to claim the Shadowhunters in the harrowing fifth book of the Mortal Instruments series.

While I truly enjoyed City of Lost Souls a whole lot more than City of Fallen Angels, I still feel that the series was completed with the original trilogy. Cassandra Clare had the perfect opportunity to expand on the secondary characters with this additional trilogy, but unfortunately for me it is falling flat. The beginning and end of this book was full of tension and action, but the middle seemed drawn out and boring despite the hot and heavy love scenes with Jace and Clary. I loved that we got more of them in this book, but the constant changing point-of-views with little to no advance notice became tiresome. Even though it didn’t add much progress to the story as a whole, I was happy to see Maia and Jordan begin to resolve their issues, they are both great characters that I’d love to see have an HEA.

Magnus and Alec’s relationship really drove this story emotionally; Alec is having a hard time coming to terms with Magnus being immortal, and in his frustration turns to someone that ultimately betrays him. And now Magnus doesn’t know if he can ever trust Alec again. Jace and Clary’s bond is tested when Jace reappears under the control of Sebastian, who is using Jace to abolish the Shadowhunters and get closer to Clary. And let me tell you…those are some pretty messed up feelings that Sebastian has for Clary.

While I find myself growing a little tired of this series, I’m still looking forward to the next book because I just have to find out what happens: do they catch Sebastian? Or does he get away to become the main villain in the new Dark Artifices series Clare has coming up next? I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.