*spoiler warning: Don’t read this book or this review until you’ve finished City of Heavenly Fire*
Blurb: “After living as a mundane and a vampire, Simon never thought he would become a shadowhunter, but today he begins his training at Shadowhunter Academy.”
To my fellow Cassandra Clare/ The Mortal Instruments fans, I must raise my hands and ask your forgiveness. This is only the first in this new ebook series and I have only just gotten round to reading it (and there’s already more out, I’m so behind *sniff*). But, as I mentally promised myself, my review is finally here!
So a bit of backtracking is in order. Simon had quite the adventure in City of Heavenly Fire. There were ups and downs with Isabelle, a big ass demon war, over the course of the series he went from mundane to rat to mundane to vampire to a mundane with memory loss. Then he was recruited to the shadowhunter academy. So brace yourselves for this one – if you asked who my least favourite character in the shadowhunter universe is, I would say Simon. However, in spite of that, he came out the other end of Heavenly Fire as one of my favourites. His character development was just beautiful.
I always wanted to know how the shadowhunters are trained and now, thanks to this series, I will finally get to know all the gory details! So there are two training groups: one for “the elite” and one for “the dregs” (elite= born shadowhunters, dregs= mundanes) since the academy is actually open to mundanes. We see Simon battling with the fact that he is known as a hero, but doesn’t remember anything he did (kind of like Harry Potter) so naturally, he feels like he doesn’t belong and that he’s in the wrong training group. That’s not the only memory related issue Simon faces in this book – obviously there’s Isabelle. When the will they/won’t they because a firm “they will” I was like FINALLY! But now he has no memories of Isabelle, that attraction just isn’t there from him. Sizzy fans, brace yourselves, there is a lot of feels in this one.
Another great thing about this book is getting to see Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan working together again.
Dates for the rest of the series
The Last Herondale – OUT NOW
The Whitechapel Fiend – OUT NOW
Nothing but Shadows – 19th May
The Evil We Love – 16th June
Pale Kings and Princes – 21st July
Bitter of Tongue – 18th August
The Fiery Trail – 15th September
Born To Endless Night – 20th October
Angels Twice Descending – 17th November
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