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Cassandra Clare

Cassandra Clare was born to American parents in Tehran, Iran and spent much of her childhood travelling the world with her family, including one trek through the Himalayas as a toddler where she spent a month living in her father’s backpack. She lived in France, England and Switzerland before she was ten years old.

Since her family moved around so much she found familiarity in books and went everywhere with a book under her arm. She spent her high school years in Los Angeles where she used to write stories to amuse her classmates, including an epic novel called “The Beautiful Cassandra” based on a Jane Austen short story of the same name (and which later inspired her current pen name).

After college, Cassie lived in Los Angeles and New York where she worked at various entertainment magazines and even some rather suspect tabloids where she reported on Brad and Angelina’s world travels and Britney Spears’ wardrobe malfunctions. She started working on her YA novel, City of Bones, in 2004, inspired by the urban landscape of Manhattan, her favourite city. She turned to writing fantasy fiction full time in 2006 and hopes never to have to write about Paris Hilton again.

Cassie’s first professional writing sale was a short story called “The Girl’s Guide to Defeating the Dark Lord” in a Baen anthology of humor fantasy. Cassie hates working at home alone because she always gets distracted by reality TV shows and the antics of her cats, so she usually sets out to write in local coffee shops and restaurants. She likes to work in the company of her friends, who see that she sticks to her deadlines.

City of Bones was her first novel. Sword Catcher is her most recent novel.


“«Quizá Londres sea la entrada al infierno, y somos almas condenadas que se niegan a ir más allá, temiendo que lo que encontraremos en el otro lado sea peor que el horror que ya conocemos.»”
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“I’m not unsympathetic. But do you like me? Because this being gay business doesn’t mean you can just throw yourself at any guy and it’ll be fine because he’s not a girl. There are still people you like and people you don’t.”
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“He clung to her more tightly, knotting his hands in her hair, trying to tell her, with the press of his mouth on hers, all the things he could never say out loud: I love you; I love you and I don’t care that you’re my sister; don’t be with him, don’t want him, don’t go with him. Be with me. Want me. Stay with me.I don’t know how to be without you.”
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“Then forget Gabriel. Is there a particular reason you keep biting vampires?”Will touched the dried blood on his wrists and smiled. “They don’t expect it.”“Of course they don’t. They know what happens when one of us consumes vampire blood. They probably expect you to have more sense.”“That expectation never seems to serve them very well, does it?”“It hardly serves you, either.”
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“Dear God,” said Will, looking from Charlotte to Nate and back again. “Is there anything that makes women sillier than the sight of a wounded young man?”Tessa slitted her eyes at him. “You might want to clean the rest of the blood of your face before you continue arguing in that vein.”Will threw his arms up in the air and stalked off. Charlotte looked at Tessa, a half smile curving the side of her mouth. “I must say, I rather like the way you manage Will.”Tessa shook her head. “No one manages Will.”
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“Am I blind?" Will's voice floated out of the darkness, tinged with annoyance. "I'm not going to be at all pleased if you've blinded me, Henry.”
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“Would you like to meet him? I could summon him up in a trice of you like. Being a warlock, and all.”
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“Never mind that,” said Will. “I’m boasting of my investigative skills, and I would prefer to do it without interruption. Where was I?”
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“As for the temperature of Hell, Miss Gray,” he said, “let me give you a piece of advice. The handsome young fellow who’s trying to rescue you from a hideous fate is never wrong. Not even if he says the sky is purple and made of hedgehogs.”He really is mad, Tessa thought, but didn’t say so; she was too alarmed by the fact that he had started toward the wide double doors of the Dark Sisters’ chambers.“No!” She caught at his arm, pulling him back. “Not that way. There’s no way out. It’s a dead end.”“Correcting me again, I see.” Will turned and strode the other way, toward the shadowy corridor Tessa had always feared. Swallowing hard, she followed him.”
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“You cut me,” he said. His voice was pleasant. British. Very ordinary. He looked at his hand with critical interest. “It might be fatal.”Tessa looked at him with wide eyes. “Are you the Magister?”He tilted his hand to the side. Blood ran down it, spattering the floor. “Dear me, massive blood loss. Death could be imminent.”“Are you the Magister?”“Magister?” He looked mildly surprised by her vehemence. “That means ‘master’ in Latin, doesn’t it?”“I…” Tessa was feeling increasingly as if she were trapped in a strange dream. “I suppose it does.”“I’ve mastered many things in life. Navigating the streets of London, dancing the quadrille, the Japanese art of flower arranging, lying at charades, concealing a highly intoxicated state, delighting young women with my charms…”Tessa stared.“Alas,” he went on, “no one has ever actually referred to me as ‘the master’, or ‘the magister’, either. More’s the pity…”
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“You really want to know what else it was my mom said about you?" he asked.She shook her head.He didn't seem to notice. "She said you'd break my heart," he told her, and left.”
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“While this is all very amusing, the kiss that will free the girl is the kiss that she most desires,” she said. “Only that and nothing more.”Jace’s heart started to pound. He met the Queen’s eyes with his own. “Why are you doing this?”… “Desire is not always lessened by disgust…And as my words bind my magic, so you can know the truth. If she doesn’t desire your kiss, she won’t be free.”“You don’t have to do this, Clary, it’s a trick—” (Simon)...Isabelle sounded exasperated. ‘Who cares, anyway? It’s just a kiss.”“That’s right,” Jace said. Clary looked up, then finally, and her wide green eyes rested on him. He moved toward her... and put his hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him… He could feel the tension in his own body, the effort of holding back, of not pulling her against him and taking this one chance, however dangerous and stupid and unwise, and kissing her the way he had thought he would never, in his life, be able to kiss her again. “It’s just a kiss,” he said, and heard the roughness in his own voice, and wondered if she heard it, too.Not that it mattered—there was no way to hide it. It was too much. He had never wanted like this before... She understood him, laughed when he laughed, saw through the defenses he put up to what was underneath. There was no Jace Wayland more real than the one he saw in her eyes when she looked at him… All he knew was that whatever he had to owe to Hell or Heaven for this chance, he was going to make it count.He...whispered in her ear. “You can close your eyes and think of England, if you like,” he said.Her eyes fluttered shut, her lashes coppery lines against her pale, fragile skin. “I’ve never even been to England,” she said, and the softness, the anxiety in her voice almost undid him. He had never kissed a girl without knowing she wanted it too, usually more than he did, and this was Clary, and he didn’t know what she wanted. Her eyes were still closed, but she shivered, and leaned into him — barely, but it was permission enough.His mouth came down on hers. And that was it. All the self-control he’d exerted over the past weeks went, like water crashing through a broken dam. Her arms came up around his neck and he pulled her against him… His hands flattened against her back... and she was up on the tips of her toes, kissing him as fiercely as he was kissing her... He clung to her more tightly, knotting his hands in her hair, trying to tell her, with the press of his mouth on hers, all the things he could never say out loud...His hands slid down to her waist... he had no idea what he would have done or said next, if it would have been something he could never have pretended away or taken back, but he heard a soft hiss of laughter — the Faerie Queen — in his ears, and it jolted him back to reality. He pulled away from Clary before he it was too late, unlocking her hands from around his neck and stepping back... Clary was staring at him. Her lips were parted, her hands still open. Her eyes were wide. Behind her, Alec and Isabelle were gaping at them; Simon looked as if he was about to throw up....If there had ever been any hope that he could have come to think of Clary as just his sister, this — what had just happened between them — had exploded it into a thousand pieces... He tried to read Clary’s face — did she feel the same? … I know you felt it, he said to her with his eyes, and it was half bitter triumph and half pleading. I know you felt it, too…She glanced away from him... He whirled on the Queen. “Was that good enough?” he demanded. “Did that entertain you?”The Queen gave him a look: special and secretive and shared between the two of them. “We are quite entertained," she said. “But not, I think, so much as the both of you.”
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“Some are just born bad, and that's all there is to it.”
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“Memories did one no good, not when one knew the truth in the present. Will was beautiful, but he was not hers; he was anybody's. Something in him was broken, and trough that break spilled a blind cruelty, a need to hurt and to push away.”
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“It was at first almost as if he hadn't wanted to kiss her. His mouth was hard on hers, unyielding; then he put both arms around her and pulled her against him. His lips softened. She could feel the rapid beat of his heart, taste the sweetness of apples still on his mouth. She wound her hands into his hair, as she'd wanted to do since the first time she'd seen him. His hair curled around her fingers, silky and fine. Her heart was hammering, and there was a rushing sound in her ears, like beating wings”
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“Will interrupted. "Henry," he said, "you're on fire. You do know that, don't you?”
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“Tessa set her fork down. "Would you like to meet him? I could summon him up in a trice if you like. Being a warlock and all.”
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“Shouldn't we stand back to back or something?" "What? Why?" "I don't know. In movies that's what they do in this kind of… situation.”
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“Jem said something then, in a language she didn’t understand. It sounded like “khalepa ta kala.”She frowned at him. “That isn’t Latin?”“Greek,” he said. “It has two meanings. It means that that which is worth having—the good, fine, honorable, and noble things—are difficult to attain.” He leaned forward, closer to her. She could smell the sweet scent of the drug on him, and the tang of his skin underneath. “It means something else as well.”Tessa swallowed. “What’s that?”“It means ‘beauty is harsh’.”
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“You always find the right quote, or the right thing to say to make me believe you love me.”
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“What are you?""Im a Shadowhunter...”
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“To be beautiful you had to be willowy and tall. When you were as short as Clary was, just over five feet, you were cute. Not pretty or beautiful, but cute.”
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“Because I finally can,” Sebastian said. “You’ve no idea what it’s been like, being around the lot of you these past few days, having to pretend I could stand you. That the sight of you didn’t make me sick. You,” he said to Jace, “every second you’re not panting after your own sister, you’re whining on and on about how your daddy didn’t love you. Well, who could blame him? And you, you stupid bitch”—he turned to Clary—“giving that priceless book away to a half-breed warlock; have you got a single brain cell in that tiny head of yours?”
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“He's not my warlock.”
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“Love and lies can corrupt even the purest heart.”
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“No. It is said that the Nephilim are the children of men and angels. All that this angelic heritage has given to us is a longer distance to fall.”
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“To my son,If you are reading this letter, then I am dead.”
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“Would you?” said Gabriel to Will, hotly. “If it was your family?” His lip curled. “Never mind. It’s not as if you know the meaning of loyalty —” “Gabriel.” Gideon’s voice was a reprimand to his brother. “Do not speak to Will in that manner.”
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“A very magnanimous statement, Gideon,” said Magnus.“I’m Gabriel.”Magnus waved a hand. “All Lightwoods look the same to me.”
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“I was laughing at you because declarations of love amuse me, especially when unrequited.”
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“with his customary crooked smile, “are just too unlikely to dwell upon.”
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“I was trying to make you jealous!" Simon screamed, right back. His hands were fisted at his sides. "You're so stupid, Clary. You're so stupid, can't you see anything?"She stared at him in bewilderment. What on earth did he mean? "Trying to make me jealous? Why would you try to do that?"She saw immediately that this was the worst thing she could have asked him."Because," he said, so bitterly that it shocked her, "I've been in love with you for ten years, so I thought it seemed like the time to find out whether you felt the same about me. Which, I guess you don't.”
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“I don't know why I had to fall in love with someone who's more stubborn than I am.”
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“Theoretically the planet could suddenly crack in half, leaving me on one side and you on the other side, forever and tragically parted, but I’m not worried about that, either. Some things,” Jace said,”
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“that love is the most powerful force in the world. That love can do anything.”
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“I can offer you my life, but it is a short life; I can offer you my heart, though I have no idea how many more beats it shall sustain”
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“Kyle is a werewolf?"asked Simon "Of course he's a werewolf,you moron"said Jace”
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“So you really cant think of anyone else who might want to kill you?"asked Jace."Unlike in your case there arent actually all that many people who dislike me."said Simon.”
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“Simon shook his head."Look,do you know what you want to eat,or do you just want me to keep pushing this cart up and down aisles because it amuses you?""That and I'm not really familiar with what they sell in mundane grocery stores.Maryse usually cooks or we order in food."said Jace”
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“Youre a public menace.You shouldnt be allowed out on your own."said Simon."Jealousy is such an ugly emotion,Lewis."said Jace.”
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“Theres no such thing as vampire mojo,"said Jace,rather eeirly echoing Clarys earlier comment."And I was following Clary,but then she got into a cab,and I cant follow a cab.So I doubled back and followed you instead.Mostly for something to do""You were following Clary?"Simon echoed."Heres a hot tip : Most girls dont like being stalked”
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“That ones yours,huh?"he asked,pointing to 3A."How come it just says 'Kyle'?Doesnt he have a last name?""Kyle wants to be a rock star,"Simon said,heading down the stairs."I think his working the one-name thing.Like Rihanna.”
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“You ate something yesterday.You sure?"asked SimonJace shrugged."Well,I wouldnt swear on a stack of Bibles.I think it was yesterday,though.”
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“You look lousy,"Simon said.Jace blinked."Seems an odd time to start an insult contest,but if you insist,I could probably think up something good”
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“I can see why you like it here," he said,making a sweeping gesture that encompassed Kyle's collection of movie posters and science fiction books. "There's a thin layer of nerd all over everything." said Jace."Thanks. I appreciate that." Simon gave Jace a hard look.”
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“Maryse sighed."Nothing conclusive.If only the dead could talk,eh,Lucian?”
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“But you hardley even know him"she said."He could be a serial killer""I did have that thought.I checked the apartment out,but if his got an ice cooler full of arms in it,I havent seen it yet.Anyway he seems pretty since.”
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“Training?'Clary echoed."But we trained yesterday.""Some of us have to train everyday,Clary."Jace didnt sound angry,but there was a harshness to his tone,and Clary flushed."Ill see you later,"he added without looking at her,and practically flung himself toward the door.As it shut behind him,Clary reached up and angerily yanked the pins out of her hair.It cascaded in tangles down around her shoulders."Clary,"Luke said gently.He stood up."What are you doing?""My hair."She yanked the last pin,hard.Her eyes were shining,and simon could tell she was forcibly wiling herself not to cry."I dont want to wear it like this.It looks stupid."'No,it dosent'Luke said”
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“When you love someone, you don't have a choice. Love takes your choices away.- Clary Fray”
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“I have important business to get to. I plan to sulk all afternoon, followed, perhaps, by an evening of Byronic brooding and a nighttime of dissipation.”
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