The Mortal Instruments

About The Mortal Instruments

Clary Fray's ordinary New York teenage life ends the night she watches a boy get murdered in a nightclub -- and then watches his body disappear, because nobody else in the room could see him at all. Clary is dragged into the hidden world of Shadowhunters, warriors who hunt demons and keep the balance between the mundane world and the supernatural one, and discovers she's one of them, with a mother who's spent her whole life hiding that fact. As Clary trains alongside the enigmatic Jace Wayland and uncovers a conspiracy threatening the Shadowhunter world, the series builds a mythology of angels, demons, warlocks, vampires and werewolves living in plain sight of modern Manhattan.

Cassandra Clare's debut series launched what would become The Shadowhunter Chronicles, a multi-series YA fantasy franchise that has sold tens of millions of copies and spawned a film and TV adaptation. The Mortal Instruments set the template the later series would follow: morally gray found-family casts, love triangles complicated by shocking revelations, and a densely interconnected mythology that rewards long-term investment.

Six novels tell one complete, continuous story across two linked trilogies, following Clary and Jace from their first meeting through the series' climactic war.

How to read this series

Read the six novels in publication order: City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass, City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls, City of Heavenly Fire. The first trilogy (Bones-Ashes-Glass) tells a complete arc; the second trilogy continues directly from it with the same characters and escalating stakes, so the six books should be read straight through as one continuous story.

This is the entry point to the wider Shadowhunter Chronicles. Cassandra Clare's other series -- The Infernal Devices, The Dark Artifices, and The Last Hours -- are set in different time periods and can technically be read in various orders, but reading The Mortal Instruments first is the most common recommendation since it's both the earliest-published and the series everything else builds outward from.