Clockwork Angel, the prequel to the New York bestselling series The Mortal Instruments is set in gas lit streets of Victorian London. 16 year old Tessa Gray is lured by the Dark Sisters members of The Pandemonium Club a secret Downworld organization of vampires, warlocks and other demons. Tessa manages to escape with the help of Will, a magical being called a Shadowhunter, killing one of the sisters and a servant who is more robot than human. Will, along with his Shadowhunter friends belong to the London Institute are dedicated to ridding the world of demons. She is fascinated and torn between Will and his best friend James and is drawn deeper into the plot that threatens to destroy not only the Shadowhunters but the world as well. Magic is dangerous – but love is the most dangerous. Compulsive reading as Clare has the ability not only to tell a story but to create a very intriguing other world.

When sixteen year old Tessa Gray arrives by steamship in London to meet her brother, she is met instead by two creepy women from a dark, gloomy mansion. Only when they show her a letter handwritten by her brother does she agree to accompany them to their lair. Tessa becomes their prisoner. They teach her to use her unknown powers to shape shift. Unbeknowst to Tessa, she was born with powers to become anyone or anything. This quality, or gift, makes her highly valuable to the mysterious and terrible Magister. The Dark Sisters tell Tessa that they are to deliver her to this evil man, but Tessa is grabbed and spirited away by two young men who tell her they are Shadowhunters, trained warriors with special gifts who fight Downworlders like vampires and warlocks to save humans. Tessa yearns to find her brother and fears for his life. The Shadowhunters agree to help her find him, if she will use her shapeshifting powers to help them infiltrate a vampire clan. Tessa finds herself torn--does she love the dark and brooding Shadowhunter who saved her from the Sisters? Or does she truly hate him?