SHADOWHUNTER WRAP-UP: 'City of Heavenly Fire' snippet, TLH news, and more

There's lots of news in the Shadowhunter fandom and here's a rundown of the latest!

Cassandra Clare shared a very special Valentine with fans: a brand new snippet from City of Heavenly Fire. This snippet features Julian Blackthorn, one of the Los Angeles Institute characters from the highly anticipated series The Dark Artifices.

Take a look:

“Julian,” said Jia, in the same gentle voice, “would you do something for us? Would you take up the Mortal Sword?”

Clary sat up straight. She had held the Mortal Sword: she had felt the weight of it. The cold, like hooks in your skin, dragging the truth out of you. You couldn’t lie holding the Mortal Sword, but the truth, even a truth you wanted to tell, was agony.

“They can’t,” she whispered. “He’s just a kid —“

“He’s the oldest of the kids who escaped the Institute,” Jace said under his breath. “They don’t have a choice.”

Julian nodded, his thin shoulders straight. “I’ll take it.”

Robert Lightwood passed behind the podium then and went to the table. He took up the sword and returned to stand in front of Julian. The contrast between them was almost funny: the big, barrel-chested man and the lanky, wild-haired boy. 

Julian reached a hand up and took the sword. As his hand closed around the hilt, he shuddered, a ripple of pain that was quickly forced down. Emma, behind him, started forward, and Clary caught a glimpse of the look on her face — pure fury — before Helen caught at her and pulled her back.

The book is roughly 733 pages, according to Cassie. "There’s no difference between the Walmart edition and any other edition in terms of the story, so you shouldn’t worry about whatever page number they have listed. It’s all the same book."

With all that said, Cassie also revealed that TESSA AND JEM will make an appearance in the book!

Signed copies of COHF at Barnes & Noble

There 2,000 first edition signed copies of City of Heavenly Fire for sale at Barnes & Noble, according to Cassie.

 I signed about 2,000 first editions of City of Heavenly Fire for Barnes and Noble (not that the COHF books have been printed yet, but I signed the first pages and they’ll be bound in. So you’ll be able to order them from B&N soon. I’ll put up the link when I have it. Every one will also be stamped with a rune stamp, and some of them — totally randomly — have my sketch of Church in them. That’s sort of a lottery, whether you end up with one of those, though. And you can always get signed books of mine from Books of Wonder.

There will be extras in both the first editions and regular prints, but with a little bit more for fans to rave about! Cassie says:

Well, all the first editions of City of Heavenly Fire have a portrait on the inside of Jace, Simon, Maia, Alec and Isabelle done by Cliff Nielson, who does all my covers. Only the hardcover first editions sold by Simon and Schuster in the US and Canada will have that portrait on the inside cover. All the books will also come with a note from one of the characters in the end that is handwritten and printed, and leads into the Dark Artifices series. That’s every book, not just the first editions. As to how to buy first editions — basically first editions are all the copies in a publisher’s first print run. They last until they sell out. So the earlier you order a book the more likely you are to get one. 

Bane Chronicles book set for print in November

Cassie revealed that the first edition of The Bane Chronicles will hit stands in November 2014. Cassie says:

Anticipatory and terrified is exactly how you should be! :) Yep, the Bane Chronicles will be released in print — the current publication date for the print edition of the Bane Chronicles is November 11 of this year. 

The newest story in the series, The Course of True Love (and First Dates), comes out this Tuesday. 

Name of 'TLH' project to be released

On February 25…

You’ll be finding out what TLH stands for.

HAPPY BELATED VALENTINES DAY FROM CASSANDRA JEAN!

Naturally, I will draw Valentine on Valentine’s Day! (The Mortal Instruments written by @CassieClare)

The flowers on the bottom are called Shooting Stars (or falling stars) and the flower on the top are called Hoya’s and look remarkably like…stars! For Morgenstern.

Cassandra Clare Talks About Parabatais, TLH, CoHF, and MORE!

Cassandra Clare took to her tumblr account to answer a few questions a fan sent her through an email. There are some great questions that fan asked and vital answers from Cassie. You can read the whole thing below:

“hi cassie! i have a couple questions that i figured I’d ask through email because its always really hectic on twitter so:- can parabatai be love interests? i thought they couldn’t but emma/julian are right? that always kinda confused me- so you’re writing the dark artifices, TLH, & are you writing another shadowhunter book aside from those as well?- are we gonna see tessa/will/ jem in cohf?”Yes, twitter has become a bit of a madhouse - I can only get on for a few minutes, and then there are so many questions I can’t follow them (usually about things I know nothing about and can’t influence, like what countries there will be movie premieres in and where the cast goes) and then I run away. I am a a wuss, I guess! But if I don’t answer you on Twitter, it’s not personal!“- can parabatai be love interests? i thought they couldn’t but emma/julian are right? that always kinda confused me”The Clave says no. You’re not supposed to be romantically involved with yourparabatai. In Clockwork Prince, one of the plot points is a past pair of parabatai, one of whom committed suicide because he’d fallen in love with his parabatai and was afraid of the secret being exposed.The Clave has their reasons for this old Law. However, like pretty much every cultural/social law decreeing that people can’t fall in love or can’t marry, plenty of people break it. It’s not like no priest has ever fallen in love with anyone. And Emma and Julian’s relationship isn’t defined yet - not even by me! We know there is probably going to be an issue of romantic interest, but they are not a couple at the beginning of the books. They might never be a couple. We will see.- so you’re writing the dark artifices, TLH, & are you writing another shadowhunter book aside from those as well?My plan at the moment is to do five Shadowhunter series, total. I don’t know if I’ll do any series in the Shadowhunter world beyond that. I don’t know why five exactly — maybe because one of my major literary idols has always been Tamora Pierce and she did five series set in Tortall. :) Maybe I think I have five stories to tell in this world. Maybe I’ll get to the end and want to tell more. Maybe not — I have a stockpile of other worlds and stories in my head; I’m writing one of them by writing Magisterium now, but there are many others.There is a special sort of enjoyment in developing stories in a created world, because you can take the rules you yourself have invented, and bend them or break them. You can create connections and history — the story of Isabelle’s ruby necklace stretches back all the way to Vampires, Scones and Edmund Herondale. Then again, with a brand new world, you get to make everything up again. It’s like: brand-new baby or adorable five-year old? They’re both good.
(The five Shadowhunter series are TiD, TLH, TMI, TDA, and very far down the road, TWP. Don’t even ask about that one! It’s too far in the future! There are other Shadowhunter projects like The Bane Chronicles and the graphic novel project about the Circle, currently in planning stages and known as TST, but I’m not counting them: I’m only counting book series/trilogies written solely by me.)- are we gonna see tessa/will/ jem in cohf?”I cannot say, because those are major spoilers. All I will say is that nobody from TiD is going to be a major character in CoHF because it’s too confusing and too spoilery for the mass majority of TMI readers, who have not read TiD. (There are also plenty of TiD readers who won’t read TMI — historical can be tricky; people either won’t read it at all, or will only read it, a lot of the time.) TMI is still Clary’s story at heart. I think for TiD readers there will be a lot of interesting connections, and the fact that Tessa is still alive is not a huge secret (we saw her in CoG) but nothing in CoHF is going to give away the ending of the Clockwork series to people who haven’t read it, and that includes who Tessa ends up with. Keep that in mind, and hopefully that can help shape expectations.

Wow Cassie is a very busy woman! Five Shadowhunter series in total plus a graphic novel and another series (Magisterium) to come! Well all I can say is I'm thrilled and cannot wait to read the next series to come!

What do you guys think? Leave your comments below!

New Shadowhunter Tarot Card: The Dark Artifices Spoiler!

Cassandra Clare shared another one of Cassandra Jean's Shadowhunter tarot cards on her tumblr account. The new tarot card is a Dark Artifices spoiler. 

Photo: So Cassandra Jean has finished the complete Shadowhunter Tarot, so for the next … seventy-something... tmblr.co/ZAIltwmeLqMd
— Cassandra Clare (@cassieclare) June 5, 2013

 

On her tumblr post, Cassie also explains the concept of this new tarot card:

So Cassandra Jean has finished the complete Shadowhunter Tarot, so for the next … seventy-something days I’ll be posting a card a day (okay, maybe not every day — I tend to get distracted!)  in order, from the first card to the last. Some will be under spoiler cuts; some you’ll have seen before — I’ll explain why each character has the card they have. 

We’ve moved on from the Major Arcana to the minor Arcana — the first suit is the suit of Rings, which takes the place of the suit of Pentacles. The Five of Rings is the Blackthorn ring. It shows the Blackthorn family, TDA-era, in all their glory. Tiberius looking crabby as usual, Julian messing around, Mark being serious. 

The Five of Pentacles  (Rings here) can often represent going forward after suffering a loss.

I wonder what loss the Blackthorn family is suffering from. I guess we will have to wait until March 2015 when the first novel of the series is released! 

What do you guys think of the new tarot card? And any guesses of the loss the Blackthorns are suffering from?

SHADOWHUNTER TAROT CARD series posted via Tumblr

Cassandra Jean, an illustrator known for her work within the young adult book genre, has created a set of Shadowhunter Tarot cards. There will be 22 in the series in all starting with The Dark Artifices.

Cassie Clare, author of the Shadowhunter Chronicle books The Infernal Devices, The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices shared thoughts on each one.

Cassie: (Isn’t Jules adorable?) They don’t have the same titles as the Major Arcana of the real Tarot, but you can see by their numbers what cards they match up to (Julian, #4, matches The Emperor.)

Cassie: Emma, the Warrior, matches the Empress card. That’s right, my baby, you look tough.

Cristina, looking fierce with her butterfly knife, taking the card of the High Priestess.

Cassie: We’re further into the Arcana, with the characters from other series showing up. Here Will takes the place of the Hanged Man, bound in an impossible situation.

Cassie: Here Jace takes the place of the Strength Card, only as an angel.

Cassie also said, "A couple of people have asked me if there’s any plans to sell the Shadowhunter Tarot but it hadn’t crossed my mind, really! They’re meant to be fun — maybe Cassandra and I can figure out a way to make them downloadable/printable.

We will post more from the set as they become available. What's your favorite one so far? Be sure to let us know in the comments below.