Clary Fray’s procurar for her missing mother leads her into an alternate New York called Downworld, filled with mysterious faeries, hard-partying warlocks, not-what-they-seem vampires, an army of werewolves, and the demons who want to destroy it all. She also finds herself torn between two boys—her best friend, Simon, for whom she’s developing new feelings, and the mysterious Shadowhunter, Jace. She becomes a part of the secret world of the Shadowhunters and as she does, she discovers that rescuing her mother might mean jeopardizing everything the Shadowhunters work for.