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Most people read like this:
The Mortal Instruments
The Infernal Devices
The Dark Artifices
The Last Hours
and then — The Wicked Powers.
Books like Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, The Eldest Curses, and The Bane Chronicles, should be read after you read The Mortal Instruments. I would read The Infernal Devices before Ghosts of the Shadow Market.
Yes, it is inaccurate! I created it a long time ago, and I had initially not planned to write the Last Hours or any sequel series to The Infernal Devices. However, once I had the idea for the story, and the characters began to develop in my head, I knew I had to disregard the "family tree." Otherwise I would have to write The Last Hours bound by a series of rules that were the opposite of story-generative — because when I created the tree, I hadn't intended there to be a story. I've said for years that the family tree is inaccurate and not to look at it as a guide to what will happen in TLH, but I do know it's never possible to reach everyone with that kind of information.
So, yes, the events of TLH don't match the family tree, and that's on purpose. The inaccuracy of the family tree is explained in-world (Esme Hardcastle!) but often people want to know if there will be a final family tree that's accurate. After this experience, I can only say that I will only create a final family tree once I know I'm not writing another Shadowhunter book ever!
Update:
Kind of! In 2024 I'll be able to give a much better idea of my definite schedule. Right now I have seven (ah!) books in the pipeline, and others are planned. This includes the next Sword Catcher book, The Ragpicker King, the next Shadowhunter trilogy, The Wicked Powers, two books in a new YA fantasy series, and and third in the Eldest Curses series, The Black Volume of the Dead.
The Ragpicker King will come out early in 2025. Otherwise I currently don't have scheduled publication dates for the other books. That will change soon, so please be patient!
Check back here for an update in the New Year.
The Last Hours is the current Shadowhunter series. It takes place in 1903, and and features Cordelia Carstairs — a Shadowhunter trained since childhood to battle demons. When her father is accused of a terrible crime, she and her brother travel to London in hopes of preventing the family’s ruin. Cordelia’s mother wants to marry her off, but Cordelia is determined to be a hero rather than a bride. Soon Cordelia encounters childhood friends James and Lucie Herondale and is drawn into their world of glittering ballrooms, secret assignations, and supernatural salons, where vampires and warlocks mingle with mermaids and magicians. . .
The Last Hours is a sequel of sorts to The Infernal Devices. It does not spoil any books taking place in the current timeline, like Dark Artifices or Wicked Powers.
City of Bones is the first of three books in my young adult urban fantasy trilogy, The Mortal Instruments. City of Bones is about a fifteen-year old girl named Clary Fray, whose search for her missing mother leads her into an alternate New York called Downworld, filled with mysterious faeries, hard-partying warlocks, not-what-they-seem vampires, an army of werewolves, and the demons who want to destroy it all. She also finds herself torn between two boys — her best friend, Simon, for whom she’s developing new feelings, and the mysterious demon hunter, Jace. She becomes a part of the secret world of the demon hunters, or Nephilim, and as she does she discovers that rescuing her mother might mean putting their whole world in jeopardy. City of Bones is followed by the second book, City of Ashes, and the third, City of Glass. You can find all sorts of detailed information about these books on the Mortal Instruments website.
The idea for the Mortal Instruments came to me one afternoon in the East Village. I was with a good friend of mine, who was taking me to see the tattoo shop where she used to work. She wanted to show me that her footprints were on the ceiling in black paint — in fact the footprints of everyone who’d worked there were on the ceiling, crisscrossing each other and making patterns. To me it looked like some fabulous supernatural battle had been fought there by beings who’d left their footprints behind. I started thinking about a magical battle in a New York tattoo shop and the idea of a secret society of demon-hunters whose magic was based on an elaborate system of tattooed runes just sprang into my mind. When I sat down to sketch out the book, I wanted to write something that would combine elements of traditional high fantasy — an epic battle between good and evil, terrible monsters, brave heroes, enchanted swords — and recast it through a modern, urban lens. So you have the Shadowhunters, who are these very classic warriors following their millennia-old traditions, but in these urban, modern spaces: skyscrapers, warehouses, abandoned hotels, rock concerts. In fairy tales, it was the dark and mysterious forest outside the town that held the magic and danger. I wanted to create a world where the city has become the forest — where these urban spaces hold their own enchantments, danger, mysteries and strange beauty. It’s just that only the Shadowhunters can see them as they really are.
For those who haven't been following along: The Wicked Powers in the last trilogy/series in the Shadowhunter universe. It takes place three years after the end of The Dark Artifices, and brings the fates of everyone we know — from the Blackthorns and Kit, to Jace and Clary, Magnus and Alec, and even Jem and Tessa, to a close. It will be released in the next few years; watch this space for details.
There are six books in the Mortal Instruments series: City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass, City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls, and City of Heavenly Fire.
The Infernal Devices and the Mortal Instruments series alternated in their publication dates — one ID book, then one MI book, then one ID book, and so forth! Because the stories overlap and intertwine, it can be fun to read them in publication order — though if you choose not to, that will not affect your comprehension of either series. They complement each other, but each stands alone as a separate story.
Yes, you will, though not as main characters. Their specific story has ended, but they remain important members of the Shadowhunter world and play a big role in The Dark Artifices and the Wicked Powers. You can also see them in the short story collections like The Bane Chronicles, Tales from The Shadowhunter Academy, and Ghosts of the Shadow Market.
Magnus and Alec, of course, have their own whole series — the Eldest Curses. Check it out!
Why, yes! Sword Catcher will be the first book in my new series written for adults, my first ever high fantasy project. I'm very excited! Here's a blurb:
Here, a boy is born to rule a divided city. A girl is destined to return lost magic to the world. And a prince will betray his people to win a crown. They'll discover the dark side of themselves and those they love, as their kingdom faces war, plague and the end of hope. But the blackest night comes before the dawn...
Also, I wrote a five-book epic fantasy middle grade (think Percy Jackson, Eragon, Harry Potter - that's epic middle grade), cowritten with Holly Black (author of The Spiderwick Chronicles) called The Magisterium Series. You can learn more about Callum and crew here.
Twelve-year-old Callum Hunt has grown up knowing three rules by heart.Never trust a magician. Never pass a test a magician gives you. And never let a magician take you to the Magisterium.
Call is about to break all the rules. And when he does, his life will change in ways he can’t possibly imagine.
The Iron Trial is the first book in an epic fantasy series that I'm cowriting with Holly Black. The Iron Trial was released in September 2014 by Scholastic Books. The second book, The Copper Gauntlet, followed in September 2015, and the third installment, The Bronze Key, came out in August 2016. There will be five books total: one for year of Call's life from twelve to seventeen, as he comes of age in a world where child apprentices train to be warriors and dark magicians seek to defeat even death. There's not much else I can say about the books yet, as I'm sworn to secrecy, but I've always wanted to write with Holly, and I can definitely say the collaboration has produced characters I love and a story I hope you'll find as funny, dark, adventurous and unexpected as I do.
I get this question all the time, I think because a lot of people know that Tessa appears briefly in City of Glass. (She is the girl in white Magnus is talking to at the party in the epilogue.) But unfortunately to answer the question any further would involve too many spoilers!
You can find all extras, outtakes and excerpts here.
Because of the necromantic magic practiced on him by the Dark Sisters in Clockwork Angel.
I don't! It would be like choosing favorite children.
...Michael Wayland was dead?
Many people have asked this, probably because it is indicated elsewhere that parabatai can tell when the other one is dead, though it does depend on circumstances and the strength of the bond.
In City of Bones and subsequent books it is made clear that the Lightwoods live "in exile" after having been punished by the Clave for their role in the Uprising. There are a few things that sever parabatai bonds. Death. Someone becoming an Iron Sister or Silent Brother. Someone becoming a Downworlder or mundane. And exile.
As an exile, Robert would not have expected to feel any connection to his parabatai and would not have known he was dead.
Robert himself says it in City of Heavenly Fire.
Alec: "You didn’t seem to miss [Michael] much, or mind that he was dead.”
“I didn’t believe he was dead,” said Robert. “I know that must seem hard to imagine; our bond had been severed by the sentence of exile passed down by the Clave, but even before that, we had grown apart."
About the Books
