I loved every single second of this. This book takes place after city of heavenly fire and before The Dark Artifices Trilogy - and continues on from the events of The Red Scrolls of magic. Of course Alec and Magnus just want to live their lives the way the want but old frenemy Shinyung shows up, robs them and the pair head of to China with Clary, Jace, Simon and Izzy in tow to retrieve it.

As always, it's a joy to read Cassies books. I'm especially loving the fact that this series is from Magnus and Alecs point of veiw.

The incorporation of Chinese mythology was interesting, and it expanded the usual mythology of the shadowhunter world. How all these ancient demons and urban Ledgends and beliefs were tangled up in the eternal war between Angels and Demons.

It was fast paced, which was nice for a shadowhunter book - jumping from one action to the next, as we already know and love these characters so there was no need to build up character profiles and relationships- and it was quiet a short book in regards to the other shadowhunter novels, but that doesn't really matter. It could have been 20 pages long and I would have still adored it.
Everything only added to the Shadowhunter World and the complexity of Downworld as the Cold Peace was still new and the shadow world was still adjusting.

It was full of sass this book. Of course I adored seeing Jem again, but I was sad Tessa didn't make an appearance but her presence was felt, as always. It was nice to meet some new shadowhunters and get an insight into how the Institute is run in China.

And of course Shinyung is back again, this time allied to another Prince of Hell (can someone just get her a therapist please?) But I feel like I do understand her motives for power. Just a form of self preservation for her I think, in a twisted way. But it was an absolute thrill that Ragnor was caught up in all this mess, giving us insight into what happened to him between The Mortal War and how he became to be Shade. ( still raging I didn't figure that out sooner when reading the Dark Artifices )

I feel like while this is kind of its own seperate tale, I can't help but feel this, along with The Last Hours trilogy will set up events for the upcoming Wicked Powers trilogy, as there seems to be a build up of events throughout the last couple of Shadowhunter books - the Dark Artifices especially and even in Chain of Gold, (where the Princes are concerned), and the meeting at the end with Sammiel wanting to talk to them about Lucifer only confirms that - so it will be interesting to see how all this plays out through the books as we have yet to see how events with Belial and The Herondales will play out in Chain of Iron.

I reccomend this for any shadowhunter fan (as always.) But come on, who doesn't love Magnus and Alec?