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At the end of Chain of Gold, James and Cordelia had gotten engaged (to preserve her reputation), James was still oddly emotionally attached to Grace Blackthorn, and the unhinged Tatiana Blackthorn had been taken off to live with the Iron Sisters. Cordelia and Alastair’s father had been cleared of the crime he was being investigated for and was on his way to London to be with his family again.
In Chain of Iron, James and Cordelia get married and move into a lovely home he has prepared for the two of them. But Cordelia aches at being with James every day and enjoying his company even while knowing his heart belongs to Grace and their months together are numbered. Her father, meanwhile, is falling back into his alcoholism, and she worries about friend and “Merry Thieves” member Matthew, who is showing the same pattern of self-destruction. Lucie is becoming obsessed with ghost Jesse, whose body is still perfectly preserved at Chiswick House. And while demons are no longer attacking the city in broad daylight, now a serial killer seems to be targeting Shadowhunters in the pre-dawn hours. Of course, our young Shadowhunters decide to try to figure out who is doing the killing and why, despite admonitions from their elders to stay out of it. James has reason to fear his connection with his demon grandfather is again putting himself and his friends and family at risk, and Cordelia ends up getting help (more than she bargained for) from a powerful entity when her legendary sword Cortana starts harming her. Lucie and Grace are secretly working together to try to bring Jesse back to life.
Chain of Iron is another entertaining book for fans of Clare’s Shadowhunter stories. I think I still prefer the initial three books in the Mortal Instruments series and the three books in the Infernal Devices series. But these are generally still fun, and particularly since The Last Hours follows the stories of the characters from the Infernal Devices books. If you’ve not yet read any of Clare’s books, definitely go to Mortal Instruments, read the first three books, and hop to Infernal Devices.
Rated: Moderate. There is not much in the way of profanity in this or any other Shadowhunter books. Violence is a big part of these books: there are demons and even princes of hell creating havoc. The Shadowhunters have to constantly train with various weapons to defeat these creatures. In this book, there is a serial killer stalking Shadowhunters using a knife, with a fair amount of talk of blood. Sexual content is frequent; there are a number of couples of various sexual orientations who have intense kissing sessions or more throughout the story. As I mentioned in my review for Chain of Gold, it is a lot of sexual content for that era.
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