Wow!  City of Glass is the thrilling third installment of  The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare.  If you have not read this urban fantasy series, get yourself to the library or bookstore and pick up a copy.  Don’t wait.  Do it now.

Clary discovers that she is not who she always thought she was.  Instead of an ordinary mundane, she is a Shadow Hunter and daughter of Valentine, the Shadow Hunter who wants to take over the world.  Desperate circumstances joined her with the Lightwoods at the Institute as she learned to fight along side them against demons and Valentine.   Now Clary is desperate to get to Alicante, the City of Glass, to find the warlock Magnor Fell who has the antidote that can save her mother.  Once she gets there, without the Clave’s knowledge or permission, she finds the city is under attack by Valentine, who has possession of the first two Mortal Instruments, and is seeking the third.  The only way the Shadow Hunters can hope to defeat Valentine is by joining forces with the Downworlders.  Will they be able to set aside their fear and prejudice of each other to fight a common enemy? 

If you are in love with this series or its characters head over to Mundie Source to enter a contest to win a free ARC (Advanced Reader’s Copy) of Clockwork Angel (the first in a series that is a prequel to The Mortal Instruments).  All you have to do is declare your passion (love or loathing) for any of the characters.  You’ve got until Saturday to get your entry in.  Even if you don’t enter, head over to read the letters already posted.

This series captures all that I love about fantasy–the battle between good and evil whose outcome balances on the choices made by imperfect humans.  Jace captures the power of fantasy when he explains his choices to Clary at the end.  He used to believe that love would make him weak, but meeting Clary showed him that love is the strongest force of all.  Even though she was raised as a weak mundane and never trained as a fighter, love made her strong.  Jace says, “And then I saw how much you loved your mother, loved Simon, and how you’d walk into hell to save them…Love didn’t make you weak, it made you stronger than anyone I’d ever met.  And I realized I was the one who was weak.”  In the end, it was Jace’s love for Clary that gave him the strength to make the right choice.  It was Clary’s rune to reveal who each Shadow Hunter loved most that convinced them to make to choice to stand against Valentine.  Love is the only force that can defeat evil. 

All my favorite fantasies explore this theme:  CS Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe, Madeleine L’Lengle’s A Wrinkle in Time, Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising,  JRR Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, even Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight.  Which stories, fantasy or not, highlight the power of love for you?