Amazing world building, a cast of kick-ass-but-still-flawed characters, and an intense magical rebellion ... The City of Dusk is everything I didn't know I needed.

The Gods have sealed off the realms, and everybody is suffering for it. Additionally - nobody knows why the Gods have abandoned them. The four noble houses each possess a gift from the Gods, and the heirs to each house come together to try and reopen the realms.

The story is fast paced and cycles through introducing the characters quickly. The magic system is fascinating and I found myself totally gripped! The only negative is that the book felt slightly too long - and there were a few minor sections where it seemed to drag a little. However, overall I completely loved it!

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I quite enjoyed this book. It is very well written and kept my attention from the start. It is incredibly long for a first book in a trilogy rough. But I look forward to reading the rest

This is epic fantasy on a truly epic scale and it’s hard to know even where to begin with this review. The kingdom of Vaega has been abandoned by the gods and because of this the realm is slowly dying, even the sun is gradually getting dimmer. Each of the four noble families is descended from one of the gods of light, darkness, life and death and each family has an heir. It is the four heirs who provide the points of view through which we read the story.
The story is complicated to say the least. The city is ruled by the holy king, Ferdinand who is childless so the noble families are moving to try and get their family chosen to be the next ruler. The city is also being troubled by conjurors who seem able to create demons and reanimate dead bodies at random which is causing fear and tension within the city. Added to that, there are different racial groups within the city who were trapped when the gods cut the city off which is also providing added problems for the families.
The four heirs are very different characters and initially I found it difficult to warm to any of them, possibly because the points of view swapped quite quickly. However, as I read through, the characters did begin to come alive and I ended up caring for each one of them. Each of the families have magical gifts which have come down to their families from the gods. These are all very different so at times the magic systems can become complicated and tricky to follow. The families are each portrayed brilliantly with different relationships in each one. I loved the sisterly interactions especially.
The pacing in the book varies a lot. The beginning is slow and it takes a while for the story to get going but the ending is totally action packed with events piling up on top of each other to a very dramatic ending,
The plot is incredibly complex and there are several twists as the story unfolds. I was really impressed by the way that all of the different strands came together at the end.
At first, I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy this book but it gradually took hold of my imagination and I did really enjoy the ride. My only real grumble is that the points of view often changed quite quickly and in my advance copy at least, the changes weren’t signalled in any way which made it quite jarring at times. Hopefully, this might be better in the actual book.
I will definitely be looking out for the next book in this trilogy to find out what the author has planned next for the realm.
Thank you to Net Galley and Hodder and Stoughton for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

When I saw the synopsis of this book, I was very curious to read it because the premises were interesting. Alas, it wasn't as good as I expected. The beginning was too dense and slow, the worldbuilding was a little bit too much and sometimes even confusing, and the characters weren't fleshed out very well. Plus, the continuous jumping from one POV to another interrupted the flow of the story. It's a pity because it had the potential to be a good novel.

I'd recommend this book if you like plot-driven stories. The characters weren't very fleshed out and i wanted them to interact more. The lack of interesting dynamics between the characters made it very hard for me to get through the book. The writting style was great and i loved the magic system.

So I know Tara Sim is a known author, but I honestly haven't read any of her books. I was drawn to "The City of Dusk" because the premise sounds so incredibly cool and unique and I was instantly intrigued. It's definitely not a bad book, on the contrary. I wanted to love it, but in the end there were just too many things I personally didn't enjoy.

The world Sim builds in this first book of her new series is a complex and fascinating one, with different realms and gods and heirs, lots of magic and a good dash of political intrigue. The world building is at times too convoluted, but in general it's well done. The potential of exploring these other realms is VERY intriguing so there's a lot of stuff to do in further novels set in the same world. The writing is good, too, and fits the story. And the characters, in theory, are so intriguing and different from each other, with so much potential for character development and interesting relationships.

Sadly, my biggest gripe with the novel is that I just could not connect to these characters at all. They could be great but in the end, they fell flat. I didn't feel anything for either of them and felt like they weren't as fleshed out as they needed to be. The relationships between them are... just not very interesting mostly? I do like that romance isn't much of a subject at all in this novel, and I also like the diversity of the cast, but that's pretty much all I like about them. Taesia really really wanted to be a new favorite character but she's just too On The Nose - still, I think she's easily the most memorable of the bunch.

The magic system is just... too much. There don't seem to be any fixed rules, and there's wings and necromancy and elemental magic and shadow magic and gods and what not, and at times it almost feels anime-esque in the way it's described. It's all over the place, just like a lot of the world building in general.
The pacing is really slow and the first half of the novel draaaaags. I admit I kind of skimmed through a few pages because nothing substantial was happening.

Still, this has potential, and the last about 20% of the book are action-.filled and really fun. It wasn't enough to change my mind on my reading experience, and I don't think I'll read the sequel, but I can still see this having a lot of fans.
2.5 stars.

The City of Dusk follows the four heirs to four noble houses who each have a divine power and must unite to save the realm from descending into war. They tentatively form an alliance to try and figure out an ancient ritual to try and return power to the houses and allow people to travel between realms (light, dark, death and light) again. However they are also all competing to be named successor to the throne and facing the threat of mysterious conjurers, who can summon demons on a whim and are causing destruction in the city.

I had a bit of weird experience starting this book because I felt like for the first 10/15% I wasn’t going to like it as it felt very generic but then I really started to get into it and I actually started to really enjoy it and got very attached to most of the characters (bar one lol which I will talk about later). I think the main thing was adjusting expectations, I know I really shouldn’t say this because I know this book is marketed as adult but it does read pretty much like a slightly more sophisticated YA fantasy (ie the focus is more on the plot than the worldbuiling/characters and the age of the characters which are the main differentiating feature between the two for me) but once you accept that I thought it was excellent.

I really liked the plot of the book, normally I’m not a plot driven reader but I thought the intrigue and mystery, along with meddling gods and plotting relatives was all so good and made the book so addictive to read.

We mainly follow 5 POVs:

<b>Nikolas</b>

Nik is the heir to the sun god but is struggling to access his powers. He is captain of the guard and is appointed by the king to look into the mystery of the conjurers and murders which keep happening but struggles with feeing incompetent. He is also very sweet and reminds me a lot of grey from the mask of mirrors series (who I love uwu). I also really liked later in the book when he meets another character called Fin, who was a very interesting character and I loved their dynamic and banter.

<b>Taesia</b>

Taesia was the only character I wasn’t really a fan of. She has the power of shadow magic, which I really like this kind of magic however Taesia as a character was the kind of archetype I don’t really like - the badass character who the author clearly thinks is super cool but just rubs me the wrong way T_T
However I did really like Taesia’s siblings Dante and Bee - Dante was honestly my favourite at the start of the book and then I was so sad when he spent most of the book in prison rip
Bee was also super cute and I think she could be a really interesting character to follow in future books.

<b>Risha</b>

Risha was my favourite of the female characters I think, but I wish she had more page time as she was so interesting! She is a necromancer (which I love!) and I loved how resilient she was and how she was just trying to do her best while being unsure where her loyalties lie. I also really liked the little side romance she had going on hehe.

<b>Angelica</b>

Angelica was an interesting character and I liked unravelling more about the mystery of her character and her erratic powers as the book went on. She has elemental magic which she can only use if she can play an instrument at the same time. I also liked what an unapologetic mess she is lol

<b>Julian</b>

Julian is a character we meet later on and he was probably my favourite of the main POVs. He is just a guard, rather than an heir to the houses like the other characters and I think this made him feel more down to earth. He is also a bit of a cinnamon roll and can talk to animals and demons which I loved!

I really enjoyed the story and the magic system, however the world building in this book was a hot mess. It felt a bit like a hodgepodge of multiple different fantasy books and cultures from our world in no cohesive style, leading to it being quite hard to imagine the world you are in. There are various quite descriptive sections of prose but I feel like they add nothing to the story because you cannot picture the world overall. I do feel like with how engaging the plot was and the compelling characters made up for this though so it didn’t bother me too much.

This book did remind me a lot of There Will Come a Darkness by Katy Rose Pool and I think of you enjoy that series (which I really did!) I think you will love this one!

Overall I would definitely recommend this book, even if I slightly disagree with how it is being marketed. I am very eagerly anticipating the sequel - especially after the ending!! If you like interesting characters with a variety of magical abilities, political intrigue and ancient rituals then you will enjoy this!

This is really one of those 'it's not you, it's me' books. It has an interesting world, the characters are well rounded and the story is decent too. Despite all this, I just couldn't gel with it at all and I wasn't able to engage with it in any meaningful way. Absolutely nothing wrong with it but just not for me.

Review not posted anywhere else. 3 stars is indicative of my enjoyment of the book, not it's quality.

I was initially slightly dubious if I'd like this book as me and New Adult books don't always get on, but I was intrigued by the synopsis so I gave it a try ... and was pleasantly surprised.

The City of Dusk story is told from the perspectives of multiple characters (four of which are mentioned in the synopsis and two more that get picked up along the way). This is something that can be difficult to do well; if the reader doesn't connect with one character then it's a race to finish their POV chapter and move on. But in City of Dusk, I found I liked EVERY character individually. They were all well written and each had their own distinct personality, motivations and characteristics. The more the story goes on you start to understand the reasoning behind their actions and there was never a moment where I thought 'Huh, why did they do that?'.

Also, lots of LGBTQIA+ representation which was greatly appreciated.

The main reasons I docked a star is:
1. You don't get much background about the world they live in and you have to try and piece it together as the story goes on since the characters aren't going to randomly burst out into a random history/terminology lesson.
2. It ends on a cliffhanger and not a "we've wrapped it up but there might be something else" - but more of a "the big climax hasn't been resolved yet and to stop this booking being 1,000 pages we're ending it here".

Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley for providing me with this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I would like to preface this review by saying that this book was in no way bad. It was, in fact, objectively very good. I simply didn't vibe with it.

But before I get ahead of myself, <i>The City of Dusk</i> is an adult high fantasy that gives us

- a kingdom on the verge of collabs
- four noble heirs who have to work together
- powers of life and death, light and darkness
- necromancy and demons

The kingdom of Vaega has been abandoned by the gods. Cut off from the realms of life, death, darkness and light, the realm is about to die. Godsnight, the night they celebrate the Convergence of the realms, might be a solution to that. Four heirs to the noble houses and contenders for the throne, have to work together to save their kingdom.

This book had quite a lot of POVs: Taesia, a shadow wielder; Risha, a necromancer; Nikolas, a soldier and Angelica, the elementalist. There's another POV that is abandoned after the first quarter and another is added too late in the story in my opinion. I was really only attached to Taesia, my rogue queen, who almost made this book worth my while. As for the others, I found them either dull (Risha and Nikolas) or unlikeable (Angelica). That is not to say they were badly written, they all had clear struggles and motivations, I simply didn't care. Nikolas especially was so whiny, I couldn't stand reading his chapters. There was also head-hopping in the same chapter which I loathe.

The focal romance that is already established at the beginning of the book, was very shallow. At the halfway point, the characters had only had three scenes together, and two were just of them hooking up. I could genuinely not see what drew those two together apart from the fact that they were both heirs. I sense there might be romance between other characters as the series continues, but I cared only marginally more about those two together.

Since your enjoyment of this book hinges a lot on caring about these characters, I found myself extremely bored. I simply wasn't invested in any of them.

The overall worldbuilding is very interesting and the highlight of the book for me. The glimpses we saw of the gods and their realms were intriguing and might be enough for me to try and pick this up again at some point. The plot was also, objectively, entertaining. We got some epic fights and there was a big plot twist at the end which I will say was well done. The prose was also well written in my opinion, the dialogue was really dynamic and there were some striking descriptions. Sim is also fairly good at introspections and writing character struggles.

Overall, Tara Sim is clearly a good writer, and knows her craft. She weaved together an intriguing world and plot and I wish I could have cared more about these characters. As it was, if this hadn't been an ARC, I would have probably DNF'ed it. Despite that, I don't want to discourage anyone from reading it and do recommend it to fans of dark fantasy. 3/5 stars.

Well, this was a JOURNEY y'all!
In between the dozens of characters, lots of POV switched and different powers, gods, worlds, demons and houses, it took me a while to get into this and fully grasp who was who and what was going on, but I ended up loving this!
Even though this book is only 570-ish pages long, it felt like it was a lot longer due to the extensive, complicated and detailed worldbuilding. I felt like all the characters were incredibly fleshed out and had their own issues to overcome, which was very well done by the other because I'm usually not into POV switching and we had POV's from at least 6 different characters here.
I don't want to give too much away because I feel like going in blind is always best, but oh boy, that conclusion blew my mind!

Overall, a great adult fantasy read and I'll definitely be looking forward to the next installment, as well as Tara Sim's other books!

I loved this book it was so well written with great character development, great worldbuilding anf a great storyline. I couldnt put it down and I can't wait to read more.

“Starfell,” she said. A promise forged into the bones, into her own flesh and blood.

🌘

Gritty, Thrilling, Queer, Magical, deadly. This book is one that’s so enthralling it sends you into a book slump afterwards. 5✨ from me - it was originally 4 but I have not stopped thinking about this book

We follow a few different POVs most cantering around the heirs of the four major families in Nexus - each control a different magic, gifted by gods that have now sealed them off from the other worlds ( of which there are many ) as their world, people and city start to die.

Taesia Lastrider - resident badass, rule breaker, queen of shadows

Nicolas Cyr - soft boi with a sword, grapples with morality like nothing else

Angelica Mordova - perfect girl on the war path, will slap you and look perfect whilst doing it.

Risha Vakara - the actual sensible one, will kill if she has to but is more likely to offer a hot drink.

This book will fulfil all your morally grey protagonist dreams, there’s battles in ballgowns - daggers, stolen kisses, wars of succession, and a murder… plus plot twists that left me dizzy.

There is not much more I could ask of The City of Dusk as a modern epic fantasy opener. Its cosmic worldbuilding is interesting and intricate without being hard to grasp (if anything, it is sometimes over-explained), but this is also real political fantasy: it genuinely feels like every character has their own conflicting motivations and ethics. The spectacular blockbuster plot is elevated by such an attention to character, where each of the major protagonists are vividly drawn and get to explore their own issues in relation to the constriction of family, duty, and power. I do think some of the secondary characters need a little fleshing out (the lining up of love interests feels particularly blunt), but that is what the followup is for - I am immensely excited to see where we go from here.

Wow. The plot is so complex that it's hard to imagine how Sim ever managed to keep everything in order, especially when considering all of the intricate details, the different characters and their dynamic personalities, the different realms etc but she did so perfectly and the result is incredible.

The elaborate world building and magic system drew me in from the very beginning and I absolutely love books that include maps. I really do believe it helps to immerse the reader into the world that's been created. My only complaint is that I found myself skipping a few lines here and there but overall I loved this book.

* Thank you to NetGalley, HodderBooks and HodderPublicity for providing a copy of this book in return for an honest review *