Once upon a time Fairharbour was a city with a more ordinary kind of ‘magical’ status: mostly keeping itself apart from the mainland, perhaps a little behind on technology, but with families and neighbours living largely harmonious kinds of lives.

And then one day something changes. No one is sure who would have attacked them, or why, but it seems like a ‘weatherbomb’ – a way of providing instant drought relief, or preventing a damaging late frost, for example – has been weaponized and used against Fairharbour. Ever since that day, it’s been permanently winter. Everyone lost friends and family in the suddenness of it all, or during the aftermath. And into the void of leadership came the ‘Doormen’ – supposedly protecting Fairharbour, but also bully-boys enjoying their power, and following weird orders that include bricking up every doorway.

In this unending cold and harsh regime, Jamie Pike scraps a living by making things to trade. He’s got clever hands, and a vivid imagination. And one day, he makes a kaleidoscope through which he sees…

Esther Pike lost so much in the weatherbomb that decimated her city, and she now scrapes a living fixing things. The power stopped working soon after the event, making it even more difficult to deal with the oppressive, never-ending summer heat. And then one day she discovers what looks like a small patch of snow, in which is buried a kaleidoscope that seems to show…

There’s a lot of intrigue here. What really happened to Fairweather, to its residents? Who is pulling all the strings behind the scenes? What happened to Carmen Pike, famous movie director, and her last film? Can Jamie and Esther – cousins and grandchildren of Carmen – convince themselves of the truth, and find a way to communicate? And, is it better to live in forever winter, or eternal summer?

I’m sad to see this is getting poor or mixed reviews elsewhere, because I really enjoyed it. The tone is a very dark whimsy, with streaks of magic alongside tragedy. It reminded me a lot of Secret Passages in a Hillside Town, in feel and that sense of a small town filled with old mysteries, and dark family secrets. I also could picture it as an episode of the excellent tv show, Haven, with a little bit of Legion – probably the diving suit-wearing mayor on that last one.

It is perhaps true that the plot can’t hold all of its mysteries – things are often foreshadowed a little too strongly, making it easy to see where things are heading. And yet, the specifics are still there to be sorted through, and the ended is satisfying if ever so slightly abrupt.

Character-wise, and I liked both Jamie and Esther as leads. They drive the plot more through curiosity than cleverness, although they both have a lot of that. I hugely appreciated the fact that they were family, not some ‘lost romance across the city divided’ – it didn’t need that, at all.

The supporting cast felt quite ‘real’ to me, even if lightly sketched. Mixes of pleasant and nasty in most, all struggling to get by in difficult situations. Overall, there was perhaps a bit too much of a sense of ‘settling’ – so many people just trudging through life and awful or ridiculous happenings. But, that also kind of felt ‘real’. Sometimes just surviving takes it all out of you.

Overall, this is a definite recommendation from me. It’s a bit different, tonally mostly, and I wonder if that threw people. It’s got whimsy – compasses that point to love, the mayor in his old-school diving suit – but the undercurrent is very dark. People will get hurt and die. And yet the blend is really well balanced, as far as I’m concerned.

I believe that the two authors wrote a character each, although I don’t think that feels overly apparent – a good thing, as it doesn’t jar in any way.

And me? I’d choose winter. Either option sounds bad, either would leave you longing for the other, but I’d say it’s easier to wrap up than try to cool down, and I’m just not made for warm weather! Which way would you go?

3.5 ⭐
Younger me would have devoured this book - and probably, if fleetingly, considered studying engineering, amongst all of the other professions I dreamed of becoming 🤔.

But in all seriousness, this was a fantastic novel (It could use a little work on formatting and editing, though that might just be an issue with my version since it was an early proof) for people who want to dip their toes into something quick and easy with just enough depth to keep it from being monotonous.

This book follows a pair of cousins trapped in two different versions of the same city: Jamie, trapped in the perpetual and relentless grip of winter; and Esther, trapped in the blistering and glittering heat of summer. It is a fantastic blend of fantasy and science fiction, with a hint of mystery as they try to find out just who or what is responsible for the split.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for an early digital proof of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Eight years back, the weatherbomb hit Fairharbour, killing half the inhabitants and trapping it ever since in one unchanging season. Or so the inhabitants think, but the reader knows from the off that there are two equally static versions of the city, one stuck in deepest winter and the other in the height of summer. With two writers telling the tale back and forth across this fracture, This Is How You Lose The Time War is an acknowledged point of comparison, though where that was sapphic epistolary romance, here it's cousins Jamie (in winter) and Esther (summer) who find a way to communicate, and dyslexia means enigmatic tokens are the order of the day, rather than simple explanatory notes. Which is a factor in my biggest complaint; part of Time War's brilliance was its brevity, and I think a similar process of distillation might have helped City Of All Seasons to the next level. Still, it has charms of its own, not least the city, whose tatty grandeur and vaguely twentieth century tech level combined with the story of resourceful young folk versus blithely malign and/or foolish adults to remind me a little of Lemony Snicket. Because both cities have apparently opposite but parallel and equally infuriating rulers, summer's Fenestration knocking holes in windows and walls in the supposed interest of ventilation, while winter's Doormen brick up buildings. There's an obvious echo of climate change and institutional idiocy in the face of same; divided communities are another clear topical link, and there's a lot too about the symbiosis of implacable opponents and the innocents who suffer in the middle of their eternal squabbles. All of these benefit from not being played as tidy direct equivalents to current affairs, and tangled up into their own thing that stands as story not allegory. But despite wonderful images like the Mayor in diving suit and tricorn, I never felt the deep strangeness of Whiteley's best work (I don't have any prior familiarity with Langmead).

(Netgalley ARC)

4.5/5 stars

City of All Seasons is a science fantasy standalone about two cousins trapped in opposite mirror worlds. Jamie Pike’s Fairharbour is one of perpetual winter while Ether Pike’s is summer. The island city of Fairharbour was once home to artists and inventors when a weatherbomb destroyed the city and killed most of the inhabitants 8 years ago. The trapped survivors adapt to their changed city, unknowing of the other parallel city until Jamie and Esther catch glimpses of each other’s worlds. Determined to unite the cities, they must find out what happened 8 years ago and soon discover that the cataclysm may very well be their family legacy.

How you’ll respond to this book really depends on how much you like the vibe and atmosphere, both which I absolutely loved. There was just this ethereal and dreamy quality to it with a tinge of melancholy and so much introspection that really drew me in. I went in without any expectations and came out really appreciating it. I thought the book was beautifully written with interesting characters and a mysterious story. It was actually rather cinematic, and I could imagine seeing this on the big screen as like one of those high concept directorial passion projects that becomes really divisive.

Although described as a science fantasy, this does come across as magical realism with the “science” coming across as essentially magic. While rather vague on the explanations and mechanisms, I was not bothered as much as I usually would because I was just there for the vibes and the mystery. The story is just very introspective and meditative in a lot of places with moments of big leaps of faith that the book just asks you to accept.

Jamie and Esther were great. It took quite a bit of getting used to to stop thinking of them as lovers but as cousins because romantic partners are the more typical. Told from their alternating perspectives, their bond really came through as they use their memories as young children (as two of the four young Pike kids) to leave clues for each other. And as they try to reconnect, they reexamine their dysfunctional family history and how it has shaped their world and the megalomania of privilege. Each of their point of views were distinctive by nature of their settings although they do read really similarly for being written by two different authors.

City of All Seasons is a unique and different speculative fiction about family and connection.

*Thank you Titan Books for the eARC via NetGalley

Although I read a lot of different books within the fantasy genre, I have less experience with speculative fiction. Once in a while I like to challenge myself though. Either by reading a classic or by tipping a toe into more complicated literature. When I saw this book on Netgalley I was quite intrigued by the concept and decided to give this book a chance. Titan Books granted me a digital review copy and last week it was time to start reading.

It's quite clear that I'm not the target audience of this book. Although the concept of this book is incredibly interesting, the book lacks the elements I prefer in books. This book is not about how the characters feel and how they learn and grow throughout the story. I also think the plot, that's mostly about the characters discovering what's going on and trying to reconnect with the other city, lacks a certain excitement and thrill.

I understand that's the point of speculative fiction. It's less about the journey of the characters and less about the story itself, it's more about the world and how that world changes people. That also means that the beginning of the book is really overwhelming. There's a lot of info given, a lot of characters are introduced and both the summer and winter city are described in a lot of details. When you like atmospheric books, you will appreciate all this a lot more than I did.

I did finish the book, however. That's mostly because the book never felt very long. Despite all the info and names and despite the story lacking emotion and thrill, I flew through the book. There were also elements of the story I did like that kept me curious until the end. How did this happen? What had happened? Is there a way to fix this? What's the role of the grandmother of the main characters in all of this? I can imagine a lot of readers will absolutely love this descriptive and intriguing book.

City of All Seasons by Oliver K. Langmead and Aliya Whiteley is dreamlike story. The cities are unsettling and the book had a creepy, overall Return to Oz/Pan’s Labyrinth element that I really appreciated. I agree that it fits more into magical realism than it does with science fiction or fantasy, but I (a mostly fantasy reader) enjoyed it nonetheless. Thank you to Netgalley and Titan Books for the ARC.

Thank you Netgalley and Titan Books for the free eArc in return for an honest review.

“It’s the job of the artist to create, not to tell other people what to do with the creation"

Jamie's Fairharbour - constant winter
Esther's Fairharbour - forever summer

When a cataclysmic event separates Fairharbour into two separate worlds, existing within the harshness of constant climates, cousins Jamie and Esther reconnect through the medium of artistic creation, fed through the cracks.

Throughout the story you find out how the cities were created and what survival means to it's citizens.

I agree with some other reviews I have seen. It is incredibly vibey. I was very onboard with the world's created by the author. The plot was a little obvious (though absolutely fine) but the characters lacked depth. I feel like I didn't get to know them at all. Hopefully the finished version will be a little more fleshed out.

What I really loved though was the theme of art being an important constant throughout trauma and difficult living situations. It may not be a priority for survival, but can provide connection between people and small relief.

3 stars for the massive potential this book has. The concept , name and cover has me since I came across this book. A city split in two –of constant opposite seasons –mirror worlds exactly like the seasons that each half hosts. However, for quite a significant chunk of the first half I felt like swimming towards the shore except the shore was nowhere near visible and i was grasping at water in the name of support. I enjoyed the swim, it was vibes galore, but I would have liked some direction a little early.
Certain places felt repetitive but I am yet undecided if that was a stylistic choice keeping to the theme or a consequence of two authors collaborating.
However, for my dystopia with a dash of steampunk lovers I would recommend they give it a shot.

Great concept, but needed some more editing.

Unfortunately this one wasn't for me. I love the idea of the same city split into two (Winter and Summer). Dystopia mixed with steampunk vibes was great. However it took almost one hundred pages for the story to feel like it started. The beginning is very much vibes, but it also felt repetitive, like the first author would write a description and the second author would mirror it. Again, lots of potential, but the story didn't move fast enough for me.

4⭐️, but only just.

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

I was pleasantly surprised by this rather introspective, character-driven tale of two cousins separated by a mysterious event that splits their city in two - one version of it ends up in eternal winter, the other in eternal summer.

The writing was solid throughout, and I felt that the two authors were very much in sync with details, style and vibes. However I felt that one character had a slightly stronger voice than the other, and more seemed to happen in their chapters. The main characters were on the bland side, but at no point did I find them annoying and I did appreciate their shared vigour for uncovering the mysteries of the city.

The setting was beautifully described. In fact, this was done so well that I could often see myself in the space with the characters.

The big themes I took from this book was the fractious nature of familial relationships, and how emotional ties can be as strong as blood ones. There is also a love for cinema and art that really shines through. It examines how our true feelings can be easier to show through our creativity rather than difficult conversations.

The ending felt a little rushed, and there was probably an overload of flashbacks to show the bonds of the rather extensive family. I think the book could benefit from a family tree as I did lose track occasionally as to who was married to who, and the parents of the group cousins.

Overall this was genre-bending and beautifully told. It is marketed a sci-fi/fantasy, but I'd say it feels more like a dystopian family drama - not sure I've ever read anything quite like it.

2.5 stars

the Pike family is famous because of their grandmother, who was a movie director. when she dies, the world gets split into two. i really liked the concept of this book, with the two cousins who are separated in these mirror worlds of each other. one in endless summer, while the other is constant winter. there’s a lot of familial drama, but i never got invested in the characters. Jamie and Esther were fine, I just think since the book is written by 2 different authors it wasn’t as seamless. i was curious to see how things would turn out but it also wasn’t hard to figure out how the book would end. i don’t even think this is a bad book, just a little underwhelming for me.

In City of All Seasons, we see our main characters Jamie and Esther, as cousins separated in cities of totally different kinds. Jamie is in a city that is stuck in perpetual winter, and Esther is in a sweltering summer city. The premise of this book sounded so amazing! And there were parts that I really enjoyed. However, even as someone who enjoys a character driven narrative, I still felt this book was slow for most of it. I enjoyed the set up of the book and the first 30-40% of this book, but this is just felt like it dragged on some.

For the first third or so of this book I was mildly invested. The premise - two versions of the same city, one in perpetual summer and one winter - was off the rip very interesting. Our POV characters were fine, and there was a cool back and forth going on between them in which they tried to communicate between the two different versions of the city.
It pretty much entirely lost me soon after. I found the characters to continue on to be rather bland, I don't know much about any of them really. We focus a lot on flashbacks and the POV characters memories of their grandmother and other family members, and I just didn't care about any of those characters AT ALL. It felt impossible not to skim from about 40% onwards, because there was so much description against little dialogue and it made the prose feel heavy and uninteresting. The description was GOOD, the authors write very well and some of the weather description allowed my imagination to flourish, but the story was very slow and not a lot happened even though there was lots of blocks of text.
The chapters being so long also made reading feel like a drain, sometimes I would be forgetting what character B was even doing in their last chapter, because character A's chapter took so long to finish.
All in all, an interesting premise but a, personally, disappointing execution.

Unfortunately this book wasn’t for me. I didn’t really enjoy it at all.

However, I did enjoy the writing style and would read more from the author but sadly this just wasn’t for me.

This took me a while to get into, but once I was in I was in!! The ending was really interesting and well done. All the characters were well fleshed out and I got really invested in the story. I also really liked how each author did their own perspective!

City of All Seasons drops you into a split world: one scorched by unrelenting summer, the other frozen in an endless winter. In the middle are cousins Jamie and Esther Pike, unraveling family secrets and long-buried memories as they try to figure out what happened to their once-unified city. It's part science fantasy, part generational mystery, and part fever dream.

The concept? Very cool. The idea of two mirrored cities, divided not just by climate but also by memory, grief, and fractured history, feels fresh and layered. I especially loved the depth of the Pike family legacy; it added weight to the unfolding drama and gave the world a lived-in feel. There’s a strong emotional undercurrent throughout, and the sensory writing made both the summer and winter cities pop off the page. You can feel the heat and frost.

That said, sometimes the book moves too fast for its own good. There were points where I was totally caught up, and then the next moment I’d be flipping back like, “Wait, what just happened?” Some big plot moments didn’t land as hard as they could have because they didn’t get room to breathe. The ending, while not bad, felt a little too neat or muted for how wild and ambitious the rest of the book was. I wanted more oomph to the finale, especially after everything these characters went through.

Also, while I’m down to roll with a little mystery in my world-building, there were definitely a few pieces that felt underdeveloped or glossed over. Not everything needs to be explained but I wouldn’t have minded a little more clarity in places.

All in all: this is a compelling and creative debut with a killer setting and emotional depth, even if it occasionally stumbles in execution. If you’re into speculative fiction that leans character-first and isn’t afraid to get a little weird with its world, it’s absolutely worth checking out.

City of All Seasons is one of those uniquely imaginative and unapologetically unconventional genre blenders that just refuses to be put in a box. It’s got a bit of sci-fantasy, dystopia, mystery and magical realism, but at its heart it’s just a beautifully human story about family, oppression, corruption and the power of creation and storytelling.

Now, the premise of two cousins trapped in alternate dimensions of the same city, one sweltering summer and the other freezing winter, had me extremely intrigued. And in a way, I think City of All Seasons is exactly what it promises to be, except the execution just so happened to be not entirely my cup of tea.

See, the storytelling is exceptionally introspective and reflective, to the point that even my character-driven loving heart started to have issues with the pacing. Moreover, the focus lies so much on dwelling on the past that I felt like we almost forgot to develop the characters (especially the side characters) and main conflicts in the present, which made it really hard for me to stay (emotionally) engaged despite the captivating storytelling.

I mean, I quite liked both Esther and Jamie as protagonists, and I thought it was beautiful to see their strong connection to each other despite living in mirror worlds and having been separated for so many years. However, despite the fact that they live in diametrically opposite settings, I found it surprisingly hard to distinguish between their perspectives; if their names hadn’t been mentioned at the top of each chapter, I wouldn’t have been able to tell who we were following, because their personality just didn’t come off the page for me. Also, it took me about half the book to realise that Jamie was a boy, oops.

All that said, I think Langmead & Whiteley both have an incredible imagination, and there is no denying that the atmosphere absolutely drips off the page. The prose is beautifully lyrical and immersive, which really fits with the magical realism vibe that permeates every aspect of this story. I might not have been invested in the plot and the characters, but I sure loved revelling in all the wonderfully nonsensical marvels.

To me, the ending was somehow both frustratingly rushed and surprisingly satisfying, which is honestly impressive on a whole other level if you ask me. While City of All Seasons was a bit of a mixed bag for me personally, I think it's worth giving a shot if you like highly imaginative, atmospheric, and theme-driven stories that leave you with more questions than answers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. City of All Seasons is scheduled for release on 29 April, 2025.

DNF at 56% - (I'm not giving a rating on Goodreads or StoryGraph, but Netgalley requires a rating)

I really wanted to enjoy this one, but I think my expectations of it were totally different from what this book was giving me. I was expecting more of the science fiction and fantasy elements, but halfway through the only magical or scientific thing is still that there are two mirrored cities - and there has been no explanation or really any actual questioning as to how it happened or how to reverse it up to the point that I read.

I did enjoy the premise of this city that was split into two 'universes', for lack of a better word, and I loved the mystery surrounding how it happened and what it has to do with the Pike family. However, it just was taking way too long to get to any answers for me, let alone to the point where the characters start to truly question their situations.

I also thought things started getting way too repetitive, with these two cousins just sending things back and forth, going to another location and repeating that. It also felt like I was being kept at arms length from both the characters and the story, and I'm not sure if that was due to the writing or if they wanted to have this big reveal at the end (but from other reviews I've seen, the ending was a bit disappointing).

The pacing also felt wayyyy too slow, which wasn't helped by the long chapters, and since I didn't feel connected to the characters and there wasn't a lot of plot happening, I really struggled with this one.

I'd say that if you enjoy slower paced stories and more literary fiction/magical realism kind of books you might enjoy this one, it sadly just wasn't or me.

This novel reads more like a fable or a parable than anything rooted in complex world-building and new ideas. I can easily see how this might have arisen from a simpler writing exercise and grown into something more. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the visual and atmospheric contrasts between the two cities, bridged by several ongoing mysteries. Several unexplained plot contrivances made this at times closer to magical realism than science fiction, but I enjoyed getting to know the two isolated halves of the Pike family, united by tragedy and their grandmother's complex legacy. Some of the pacing fell apart near the end, with too many events happening too quickly, but I still found this novel a worthwhile read.

City of All Seasons is a reading experience that is based on an original concept, wantonly crosses the boundaries of genre and delightfully baffles with absurd logic, surreal imagery and a touch of macabre.

It is a unique and puzzling book, entirely in a league of its own. Since my firm belief is that life is too short to read the same books, City of All Seasons is my kind of book. I won’t read another one like that any time soon.

The premise of it is pleasingly simple and somewhat symmetrical: a town of Fairharbour is struck by a weather bomb (or something much more human and sinister) and, all at the same time, it is shackled in the permafrost of winter and dissolved in the unbearable heat of never-ending summer. The town is not divided between the two seasons, not in a physical sense. Both the winter and summer Fairharbours retain their original streets and buildings. But the people are separated, assumed dead and grieved for, families torn apart, with the focus on the Pike family. Cousins Jamie and Esther are trapped in their respective versions of the city: Jamie in wintry one, Esther in the summery. Soon they begin to suspect that there is the other Fairharbour and test their suspicions by sending small tokens by which they can recognise each other. Their work towards understanding what happened to their town, and most of all towards bringing it together again, begins.

As I said at the beginning, City of All Seasons doesn’t subscribe to any particular genre. It could be a fantasy novel but, apart from its obvious idiosyncrasy, the city could be any ordinary coastal town with a harbour, a factory, a fish market, a theatre, a post (or Patent) office and a throng of mere mortals caught in extraordinary circumstances.

It could pass for sci-fi, but not quite because there is a distinct retro feel to it. It is by no means futuristic. For one, it lacks modern-day modes of instantaneous communication which could easily resolve a lot of the problems the characters are hindered by. In their ingenious exchanges, Jamie and Esther rely on such vintage props as a kaleidoscope, a deck of Tarot cards, a projector with reels of films, a door. They make those yesterday objects with their own hands, taught by Pawel, a man who is missing from both sites but who still, from beyond, brings that sense of calm competency that guides the two protagonists in their efforts.

It carries elements of magic realism, macabre and gothic horror. It is also an exploration of family ties and conflicts, human resilience, power vacuum and struggles to fill it.

City of All Seasons isn’t a fast read, and it shouldn’t be. It doesn’t lead neatly to any direct answers to questions the reader may have asked at the start, but it doesn’t promise to answer anything. And why should it? It also doesn’t provide a clean, satisfactory to all resolution, and that is very true to life.