The Mortal Instruments

Novels

1. City of Bones
2. City of Ashes
3. City of Glass
4. City of Fallen Angels
5. City of Lost Souls
6. * The Shadowhunter's Codex
7. City of Heavenly Fire
8. * The Bane Chronicles
9. * Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy
10. * ''Ghosts of the Shadow Market''

    Main characters

• Clarissa Adele "Clary" Fray/Fairchild is the daughter of Jocelyn Fairchild. Clary is an artist, a student, and a presumed mundane. The inciting event of The Mortal Instruments is that Clary learns that she is a Shadowhunter, a secret her mother kept to protect her. Later in the series, readers learn that she is also the daughter of Valentine Morgenstern and the sister of Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern. Clary is gifted with the ability to create runes, because her father administered angel blood to her while she was in the womb as an experiment. Clary described as being stubborn and impulsive. Her best friend is Simon and she is romantically involved with Jace.
• Jonathan Christopher "Jace" Herondale is a Shadowhunter, and among their best fighters. Jace is often flirty and insensitive, due to insecurity. Jace's biological family was unknown until the last few books, although he was raised by the Lightwood family at the New York Institute, and so he often refers to Isabelle, Alec, and Max as his siblings, and Maryse and Robert Lightwood as his parents. He was raised by Valentine Morgenstern, who was assuming the identity of Michael Wayland at the time. He eventually learns that his biological father was Stephen Herondale. Like Clary, he has special abilities which make him swift and graceful, caused by the extra angel blood he received while in his mother's womb. His parabatai is Alec Lightwood, and he is romantically involved with Clary.
• Simon Lewis is a teenage boy who describes himself as being a "hipster," though his best friend, Clary, calls him a "geek". Simon is Jewish, was raised by a single mother, and is in a band with his mundane friends. Simon began life as an ordinary human, but in City of Ashes was transformed into a vampire. After becoming a vampire, he didn't age and physically remained 16 years old. At the end of The Mortal Instruments, Simon makes a deal with a demon to trade his immortality and memories away so that he and his friends can escape Edom, a hellish demon realm. After this trade, Simon becomes human again, with no conscious memories of the Shadow World or any of his friends. Eventually, his friends realize that he still has some faint memories of the Shadow World, and they encourage him to train to become a Shadowhunter, a journey explored in depth in the Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy partner short story collection. His best friend is Clary, and he is romantically involved with Izzy.
• Isabelle "Izzy" Sophia Lightwood is a Shadowhunter that is described as very beautiful, very girly, and very fierce. She carries a gold electrum whip. She is flirty and cannot hold a serious relationship, often finding herself in flings with people her parents would not approve of. Eventually, she becomes interested in Simon Lewis. In City of Lost Souls, she admits to being in love with Simon and in City of Heavenly Fire she becomes Simon's girlfriend.
• Alexander "Alec" Gideon Lightwood is the oldest Lightwood sibling. His weapon of choice is a bow and arrow. Though he is an impressive warrior, Alec has never killed a demon. He is described as quiet but protective of his younger siblings, Isabelle and Max, the latter of whom dies in City of Glass. In the first book, City of Bones, Alec believes he is in love with Jace, his best friend and parabatai. But later, Alec starts a secret relationship with Magnus Bane. In City of Glass, Alec kisses Magnus in front of his parents, revealing to them that he is gay. Alec later becomes insecure about his and Magnus' relationship because of Magnus' immortality and considerable romantic history. This leads him to consider turning Magnus into a mortal against his will, which causes Magnus to end their relationship in City of Lost Souls. However, Magnus and Alec eventually reconcile in City of Heavenly Fire.
• Magnus Bane is the self-described freewheeling bisexual High Warlock of Brooklyn. Magnus is an approximately 800-year-old warlock who appears to be 19. Magnus Bane is often described as glittery. In The Mortal Instruments, Magnus helped Jocelyn, Clary's mom, erase Clary's memories of the Shadow World. Magnus began a relationship with Alec Lightwood that is the focus of the series The Eldest Curses. Magnus also appears in the prequel series The Infernal Devices and The Last Hours, the sequel series The Dark Artifices, as well as the anthology of short stories titled The Bane Chronicles describing some of the major events that occurred in his life before the events of The Mortal Instruments. He is one of the only characters who is mentioned in all of the main Shadowhunters Chronicles books. His parents are an unnamed Indonesian woman and the greater demon Asmodeus.
• Lucian "Luke" Garroway/Graymark is a former Shadowhunter and the former second-in-command of the Circle. When he was younger he was best friends and parabatai with Valentine. However he was soon betrayed by Valentine who led him into a trap where he was bitten by a werewolf, causing him to become one. He was the leader of the Manhattan werewolf pack, proceeded by Maia Roberts. He becomes engaged to Jocelyn Fairchild, Clary's mother. He is described as calm, level-headed and righteous. He is fiercely loyal to his loved ones.
• Jocelyn Fray/Fairchild is a Shadowhunter, a former member of the circle, and the mother of Clary and Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern. In Idris, the Shadowhunter home country, she was married to Valentine but following the birth of their first child, Jonathan, she learned that Valentine had been experimenting on her, mixing demon blood into her food and thus making Jonathan a monster. Valentine performed a similar experiment using angel blood when Jocelyn was pregnant with Clary. After Valentine faked his and Jonathan's deaths, Jocelyn left Idris and moved to Brooklyn where she gave birth to Clary. Every two years Jocelyn had Magnus Bane cast a block on Clary's "Sight" to prevent her from seeing the Shadow world. Jocelyn is secretly in possession of the Mortal Cup, one of the titular Mortal Instruments needed to raise the angel Raziel or to make new Shadowhunters. In City of Bones she self-induces a coma to prevent Valentine learning the whereabouts of the Mortal Cup. She is reawakened in City of Glass. She eventually becomes engaged to Luke, who she has been friends with since living in Idris. Her current surname, Fray is revealed to be a portmanteau of her initial maiden name, Fairchild, and that of Tessa Gray, a warlock seen in City of Heavenly Fire, and who is the protagonist of the prequel series, The Infernal Devices.
• Valentine Morgenstern is Clary and Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern's biological father, and is Jace Herondale's adoptive father. He is the main antagonist for the first three books of the series. He was Parabatai with Luke before Luke became a werewolf. Valentine faked his own death prior to the events of The Mortal Instruments. While raising Jace, he assumed the identity of Michael Wayland, a Shadowhunter who he had actually killed years earlier.
• Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern is Clary's brother, and the main antagonist of books 5 and 6. Like Clary, he is a Shadowhunter, but he was born with demon blood in his veins. It was administered to him by his father, Valentine, while his mother, Jocelyn, was pregnant. At the end of City of Heavenly Fire the evil was burnt out of him. He died soon after admitting to and apologizing for his wrongdoings to Clary and their mother.

  Critical reception