description

The Mortal Instruments is a series of six young adult fantasy novels written by American author Cassandra Clare, the last of which was published on May 27, 2014. The Mortal Instruments is chronologically the third[1] series of a planned five in The Shadowhunter Chronicles but was the first one published. It follows Clarissa Fray, who interacts with a group of Nephilim known as Shadowhunters while also discovering her own heritage and her family history. The Shadowhunters protect the world of mundane/human people, who are also called mundanes or "mundies", from dark forces beyond their world. The book series has become popular within the young adult genre of paranormal romance/urban fantasy and supernatural, but Clare did not originally intend to write the series for teens. When she began writing City of Bones, she did not view it as a young adult work, but first and foremost as a fantasy novel, where the main characters just happened to be teenagers. When she was approached by a publisher interested in aging up her characters, she ultimately decided that she "wanted to tell a story about characters at that crucial life stage just between adolescence and adulthood, where your choices determine the kind of person you're going to be rather than reflecting who you already are."