It's less, like, proper sci fi and actually more... whimsical magic realism, I guess? With the description I thought this would be a fast, reality bending story of the two cities in some sort of uprising against the "oppressive powers".

It's actually a meandering tale with a lot of reminiscing about family and not much action.

I didn't really enjoy it because of the plodding pace. If the description reflected the proper whimsical tone I think it would do great with its intended audience, because some of the writing and imagery is quite lovely. This is why I've given it three stars - it's a "not for me, but not awful" book.

Imagine a city sliced in two: one half trapped in perpetual, burning summer and the other in bitter, scouring winter. Neither half is aware of the other, only the calamity that befell them, and the loved ones lost, their bodies never recovered. Jamie and Esther Pike, cousins who grew up close, each inhabit one half of this divided city, and slowly begin to uncover the existence of their lost mirror, the rest of their family, and the calamity that caused the division in the first place.

It's already an interesting concept, a novel I might like to read. But the reality of reading it —and the draw that actually brought me to pick up the book— was in the authors, and the extent to which their previous work felt entirely oppositional to handling this kind of concept at face value. Neither of them is particularly notable for works of core genre, uncomplicated fantasy.

City of All Seasons is no different, and the primary driver for the complication sits within a tension at its very core, between the ways much of the premise and worldbuilding are fundamentally silly, and yet rendered serious by their handling in the text. It begins with the "weatherbomb," that we are told at the start of the novel is the cause of the calamity in Fairharbour. It's never explained beyond the very basic concept, which is graspable from the name alone: a bomb you set off that changes the weather. But it continues in the details. Winter Fairharbour is plagued by a growing threat of the Doormen, who brick up the openings and burn the doors in the frozen city, supposedly to protect, and they are paralleled in summer by the Fenestration, determined to knock the glass from the windows and holes into the walls for spurious claims about health and cooling breezes. It's just silly, right? The big bads are the men who brick up doors and the men who knock holes in walls. What kind of antagonist is that? And yet, even when they are described in frankly comic ways —the vests and shorts that render the Fenestration overgrown schoolboys, and the prop guns that emphasise the performative nature of the Doormen's power— they are sinister. They are threatening, in both halves of the story. This permeates throughout, in worldbuilding details, in the coincidences that go unexplained but must be accepted, in the artificiality of the narrative in places, and in the very concept of Fairharbour and its history. If I had to describe it all in detail, it would come across as ridiculous. And yet, in the writing, in the way Langmead and Whiteley have set an atmosphere, it always stays just the right side of the line. Never fully, never diving headlong into the grim and the awful and the real, never letting go of that tension, that feeling that at any point it might tip over the edge into nonsense, but never quite doing so.

Part, I think, of what drives it is that I'm not sure quite how genre this book truly is. I mean, on the face of it, the answer is "entirely." Parallel cities stuck in perpetual seasons is absolutely genre, right? But while genre may be what City of All Seasons does, it never quite feels like what it's for. That, instead, is the stuff of purest family drama, going back right down to the classics. All this mystery, all this peril, all this technomagic that never quite gets explained, all exists to serve a far more mundane (but no less compelling) story of a family stuck within its own narratives and cut by the sort of divisions that plague families all the time—sometimes you get siblings who just Do Not Get On, for no real reason, and who cannot ever let up, let it go, and leave each other alone. Sometimes the legacy of a powerful, capable and well-regarded matriarch is too much for her children to bear. Family is what defines us, what makes us, and a thing we may want to leave behind or cling to. All of this is there in the core, wound up close with the encroaching danger of people gone mad with power and stagnation. There can be a frivolousness to the trappings of genre, and a seriousness to the core themes, and they can be constantly pulling at each other for dominance.

But it's not quite that simple either. Because some of that family drama is also, quite frankly, silly, and not just in the way that many family dramas seem trivial to someone looking in from the outside. Jamie and Esther each reminisce at various times over incidents from their childhoods, before the city split, and their recollections range from a genuinely quite scary incident with a raging dog and four children desperately hiding behind a bathroom door, to a man always making a wineglass sing before speaking at family events, or two brothers always needing to do the opposite of the other and outdo them besides, no matter the outcome.

So too, some of the fantastical in the story has real power—it is a novel full of people who make things that can do something more than just their strict purpose, and there are some truly beautiful moments of those inventions in action that bring about some of the loveliest descriptions in the book. The first, where Jamie makes a kaleidoscope out of scavenged glass and glimpses a fountain that has lost its lustre in his city, is the one that sticks strongest in my mind, but there are many—glimpses of the natural world or moments of stillness and beauty, where the SFFnal is instrumental in rendering the meaning of the scene.

The complexity bleeds through into the tone as well—there are moments when it feels truly SFFnal (because "feel" is how I find myself defining these kinds of things, usually), and others where the weathervane swings in a heavy breeze and points due litfic with certainty. Not because the story is uncertain of what it's trying to be, or meandering wildly between two extremes, but because what it is is always ambiguous, and slips easily across a boundary it refuses to be defined by. There's a tonal layering going on, where one sometimes slips above the other, but both are always there.

This is never more clear to me than in the magic that appears sporadically throughout the story. I am generally not a fan of scientified magic at the best of times, preferring the more intuitive, fluid style that I associate more with the mythic and the folkloric. This is she. And yet... not? Magic absolutely happens in the story. The characters acknowledge that an effect has occurred that is at least... implausible or unusual. But it's not quite rareified up to the level of "magic." It's more... a knack? It's part of life that sometimes, there are people who can do things that... do things. So it's not just rejecting systematisation, but also in many ways acknowledgement of its own mystique, while never making magic the norm in the world. It is neither one thing nor the other, nor a secret third thing. It simply is, and that must be sufficient. Which, for me, it absolutely is.

And so the story really shines there—in its core family drama, in its worldbuilding and in the way it plays with expectations around genre and tone, while creating for itself a very specific yet hard to define, consistent atmosphere.

However, there are some things being done a little less well.

For all that the family drama as a whole is very well managed, some of the individual pieces that feed into it don't quite fit. Specifically, the characters of Jamie and Esther, especially in the later part of the book. They are at their best when wondering, musing and trying to get to the bottom of the situations they find themselves in. When they are catapulted into actual action, they are undermined by the sudden change of both of their personalities —up until this point competent and thoughtful, if with different emotional outlooks— into absolute idiots. They make decisions that don't feel quite embedded in the characters that have been developed through the story up to that point, barely seeming to think about fairly momentous things. Problems spiral out of almost random behaviour. It's not so much that they behave suboptimally —though they do— that's the problem, but that it feels as though it comes out of nowhere. These are people who've survived this long in their respective suffering cities. Why does all that good sense that we have seen on the page suddenly go all to hell?

Likewise, Jamie particularly has a loose relationship on page with his cousin Henry, and there is a moment towards the end of the book where Henry has a sudden (and quite justified) outburst about Jamie's behaviour. It's interesting! It's good! I want more on this character whose position within the Doormen is a fascinating one! But it's never really developed, and events move on and away before that reaction can really be explored for him or for its effect on Jamie. It just sort of sits there, without buildup or resolution. There are several pieces of various character arcs with exactly that issue—things I am fascinated by and yet never spend long enough with to see them actually blossom into something complete.

There is also, right towards the end, an upheaval of core concept that undermines a good deal of what the book has told us previously and, while in some ways it suits the narrative very well, it comes with a bonus sense of being cheated, somehow. It breaks some narrative expectations in a way that feels slightly unearned, leaving me a little dissatisfied with the effect it has on the story's resolution. Sometimes conventions are in place —or expectations— because they do sit better with the reading experience of the story. Sometimes, if you break them, you need to do the work to make it worthwhile, and I'm not sure, in this case, that that has been done, especially for the sake of a last-minute red-herring reveal.

Except... maybe the problem there is me? Maybe it's not that there wasn't sufficient buildup and groundwork for the reveal, but instead that I come with too many assumptions about stories, and how the information in them is to be trusted (or not). For a story that is so much about uncovering a mystery, maybe that rejection of assumptions is apt, even if in the moment it feels uncomfortable.

I'd like to believe that, but I think ultimately that would require something else that isn't quite working at full capacity, and that's the crafting of Fairharbour as a place I can intuitively believe in. All that worldbuilding, all those beautiful descriptions, sometimes run up against the barrier of the nascent silliness and leave me with a lingering feeling that Fairharbour doesn't make sense on a human level. It's close, and there are long stretches when it does work, punctuated by moments where it doesn't quite hang together, and where I cannot quite find it in myself to treat this as a viable place in which serious, dangerous things can happen and are happening. To some extent, I need the world to believe in itself, just enough, so that I can believe in the events taking place within it.

And I think some of that comes all the way back to the mirrored cities, and the way their mirroring exists constantly throughout the narrative, not just in events and locations and the physical world, but in the way the story is told, the voices and the tone. If I were to compare it to another split narrative, This Is How You Lose the Time War, the thing that sticks out is how homogenous the two halves are; where Time War's distinct parts have their own very clear voices, Esther and Jamie are too mirrored, too paralleled. Their relation to one another is critical to the core of the book, but it gives them too much sameness and contributes to a feeling that sometimes they, and the place they inhabit, cannot be treated as real in a way that matters to the story.

But those are only moments. Enough to detract a little from the whole, but not to undermine it completely, and very often counterbalanced by some really interesting play with the ideas and shape of the novel. It's not quite like anything else, and very distinctly itself, in a way I found immensely rewarding. It's sort of fantasy, sort of dystopian, sort of literary and sort of none of them at all. It is, more than anything else, interesting, and that drove me to keep turning the pages, wanting to know not what happened next, but how it happened, and I really enjoyed that.

Thank you NetGalley and Titan Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

City of All Seasons tells the story of Jamie and Esther, siblings who have been separated into two versions of the same city. Jamie lives in an eternal winter while Esther is in an endless summer. However, their connection remains as they both fight the oppressive governments that rule over their cities.

The concept of this book is incredible. Switching between the two versions of Fairharbour makes for an addictive plot to keep you reading. This book will stand out with the world it creates and the characters' fight throughout the story.

There are so many unique elements to this book. It masterfully mixes so many genres to create a story no one has experienced before. Everything about the world and politics had me hooked until the end.

One of the plot elements I loved the most was the inclusion of film. The role film played in the story is something I've never read before, but something I'd be happy to read in every book going forward.

With such a detailed and intriguing plot, I expected a big ending. Unfortunately, I found the ending to be underwhelming and simple. So much has happened in these two cities and the ending made it feel like not much happened at all. It didn't have the same power that made the rest of the story stand out. It's not bad at all, but it wasn't incredibly impactful for me.

The one element that caused problems for me was the characters. The story is heavily character based, but I felt detached from them the whole book. I can't quite point out what it was that kept me from connecting to them, but I never fell in love with them. I know the ending would have felt so much stronger if I had connected with the characters.

City of All Seasons has so many incredible, unique elements. The plot felt like a breath of fresh air after being stuck inside for so long. I may not have loved the characters, but I know so many people will. If you're looking for a beautiful blend of genres and an original, character-based story, this is the book for you.

Review on Goodreads (sophreadingbooks https://www.goodreads.com/sophreadingbooks) as of 4/10/2025
Review on Instagram (sophiesreading https://www.instagram.com/sophiesreading/) expected 5/15/2025

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

City of All Seasons by Oliver K. Langmead and Aliya Whiteley is a first person dual-POV science fantasy. The island of Fairharbour has been divided by the long-standing rivalry between two brothers, Remi and Jan Pike, for years. Weatherbombs have made half the town winter and the other half summer full time. Jamie and Esther, two cousins of the Pike family, are going to try to find a way to communicate with the other side.

Film plays a very large part in the plot. Carmen Pike, the mother of Remi and Jan, and the grandmother of Jamie and Esther, is the most famous person to come from Fairharbour and a popular director on the mainland. Her Technicolor works have won multiple awards and depicted the island she comes from in a variety of ways that resonated with the mainland. We get a lot of references to her filmography and some titles, from her full length pictures to her short films that helped build her skills. Because of how important film was in Carmen’s life, it ended up playing a pretty big part in the lives of her family.

Where the film aspects really get interesting to me is the themes of exploitation. For all intents and purposes, Carmen initially seems to be determined to preserve the life of Fairharbour and show off her home to the rest of the world. But then we get examples of the same person who gave her her big break butchering Fairharbour in a way that the island completely rejected and most likely felt betrayed by as the street that was depicted in the film ended up abandoned. We don’t talk enough about how works set in real small towns often only get the one piece of representation and when a creative gets it really wrong to the point that it feels like a betrayal, it cuts a lot deeper than if the town depicted was NYC or Chicago.

The plot is something of a mystery and the relationships of the Pike family are slowly peeled back through Jamie and Esther’s POVs. The weatherbomb aspects are a big part of how the scene was set before the plot opens and they do come up multiple times due to how they affected the lives of the cast outside the Pike. I think this book is a lot more theme driven rather than plot or character or voice-driven as family division really does touch every last piece of what happens.

I would recommend this to fans of science fantasy that feels like it’s set in the early days of film and readers looking for a theme-centric science fantasy

Thank you to Titan for an eArc in exchange for a review of this book!

True rating: 3.75

This book is dual perspective, following cousins Jamie and Esther. The city of fairharbour was split into two versions, Jamie’s being in perpetual winter and Esther’s in an endless summer.

Throughout this book they find a means of communicating, and uncover the secrets of what caused the split.

I really enjoyed the speculative and somewhat historical nature of this book. It’s a really interesting concept and if you like a split dimension story with mystery elements this book is worth a read!

I can understand the authors were going for a solemn feel with this, but I think the language and atmosphere probably could have used some work to really get it there.

I felt that it ended somewhat abruptly, and could have had some more going on the end. Overall a quick and enjoyable read; well crafted and an interesting concept, but it’s missing something to take it to the next level.

The Pike family is the most famous family in Fairharbor. This started with the matriarch and grandmother, Carmen who is a film director and producer. Her fame has created opportunities, but also rivalry. On the day of her death, Fairharbor is split into two cities, one permanently in winter and the other permanently in summer. Across these two cities, cousins Esther and Jamie both remember their family as the struggle for survival in their version of the city. Then they discover they can communicate with each other in small spaces where their two worlds meld.

I liked the concept of the book and so much of the imagery was great. I struggled with how disjointed the writing felt, and when I figured out that it was two writers that made a lot of sense. You can feel that the disconnect between the two.

Thank you NetGalley and Titan books for this ARC!

I loved the idea of this book and thought it sounded intriguing but I was just left feeling massively disappointed.

The good: I enjoyed the writing, you couldn’t tell that it was written by two different authors, it was cohesive and flowed nicely. I enjoyed the dual pov too and how they had differing opinions on family.

Unfortunately the story let it down for me. This felt like more of a family saga to me with just a small sprinkling of magic. There were some aspects I found confusing like ‘fenestration’. I’m not going to lie about 50% of the way through the book I skimmed the rest as I really wasn’t engaged in the story at all.

City of All Seasons was marketed to me as a mix of fantasy, science fiction, dystopia and magical realism. The premise is simple and so different: We have two different versions of the same city that are polar opposites in terms of weather and mindset. The atmosphere was very well done, so much so that one can almost feel the freezing cold and the oppressive heat.

I would say, however, that this book falls more into the the magical realism genre than any other. And, unfortunately, it didn’t work for me. I did not connect with the characters at all, there are multiple plot holes or world building topics that are not explained and, with a few exceptions, I was confused and distracted with the pacing overall. I was hoping that I would reach the end and all the pieces would fall into place, but they never did and the conclusion felt rushed and very anti-climatic.

On a brighter side, this book is definitely very cinematic and has some very interesting symbolisms. I have the feeling that this would be a great read for readers who just accepts magical systems at face value, but I’m always looking for logic (even in made up magic systems, I know, sue me) so that affected my overall enjoyment.

Thank you so much to Titan Books and NetGalley for providing me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for an Advanced Reader’s Copy in exchange for an honest review.

City of All Seasons is a speculative fiction novel that tells the story of two cousins, Jamie and Esther Pike. Eight years before the start of the narrative, a supposed ‘weather bomb’ strikes the island of Fairharbour. While they believe each other lost in the unprecedented natural disaster, Jamie discovers that the city was in half cut into two dimensions. While he lives in an endless, freezing cold, bitter winter, his cousin Esther exist in the other version of Fairharbour, where a blistering summer has taken over.

As the cousins search for a way to unite the two Fairharbours and reunite the existing members of their family, they discover layers upon layers of family secrets, many buried beneath the ice of Jamie’s frozen Fairharbour. A murdered grandmother and her once-successful films, a pair of vindictive uncles with a life-long vendetta against each other, a mayor that seems to be more nature than man, and a rebellion in the summer city. Henry, a secondary character and another cousin in the Pike orbit, was a particular favorite of mine.

The ending was a bit abrupt and bittersweet for my personal taste, but overall, Langmead and Whiteley have constructed a compelling and thoughtful story that reminded me at times of Station Eleven. Quite the feat. I hope they continue to write together in the future – if so, I’ll be reading it.

Unfortunately I won't be able to provide an indepth review on this book, as after multiple attempts I've decided to DNF it. I have loved Aliya Whiteley's writing in the past and enjoyed the writingstyle in this novel. The concept was incredibly interesting and I liked the idea of nested stories within stories in theory. Unfortunately, the overarching story and characters completely failed to capture me, and I found myself so incredibly bored that the words went in one side of my brain and straight out the other.

Thank you to Titan Books for providing me with an ARC. Unfortunately I cannot recommend this book based on my experience with it..

Fairharbour exists in two places; one is eternally in summer, the other eternally in winter. Two cousins, on either side of this rift, must find a way to communicate, and pull the two towns back together, while avoiding their authoritarian controllers.

I enjoyed a lot about this book. The worldbuilding - on both sides - was great, with a lot of fun parallels and mirrored twists. Most of the characters were engaging, clearly defined, and had their own plans and ambitions that helped push the plot forwards. Flashbacks are paced extremely well, and only ever build on what we know of the plot, without dragging it backwards (impressive, considering how frequently they appear). However, the pacing as a whole often floundered. The dual viewpoints, rather than weaving seamlessly together, often feel like a restart as we hop back into the other town, and take a few pages to get back into the action.

Somehow this book with an incredibly cool premise - different versions of the same city stuck in different seasons ruled by an oppressive regime - was so boring I could barely keep my eyes open and subsequently don’t have much else to say about it.

This book was like reading one of my dreams - a fusion of sci fi, fantasy and dystopia. A city that has been split into two worlds, eternal summer and eternal winter. What we are given is two cousins trying to reach each other and giving us parts of their lives through stories and memories. It reads like a fairytale and lulls you into a dream state. I enjoyed the surrealism and the idea of the plot, I enjoyed understanding the family dynamic through memories and childhood wonder. The middle part became quite repetitive and I felt like I was waiting for ‘the final battle’ to happen but the end felt slightly anticlimactic. The character of the mayor was my favourite and I loved the idea of his physical attributes and how he moved the plot along.
The book was very symbolic and I would recommend this if you like family and political corruption and filmography!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending an advance copy of the book

ENGLISH

City of All Seasons is a bit of science fiction, dystopia, and magical realism. It follows the story of a city separated into two realities: one lives in eternal winter, where Jamie lives, and the other is always in summer, where Jamie's cousin, Esther, lives, both sides unaware of the other's existence. Because of this mix of genres, the book reminded me of many things (the tv shows Awake and Lost, the story of Cain and Abel), and yet it managed to be original. The narrative in two points of view is linear, but Jamie's point of view was more interesting to me; I think his chapters have a lyricism that I liked. But, don't get me wrong, both authors convey the sensations of cold and heat and other dualities in the plot very well. The writing style and the way the story is told was one of the most different things I've read this year, and that's exactly why it won't please everyone. The authors don't give away all the answers, and for me, that's a positive point. The ending may seem disappointing to some, but the plot of this book is about family, the ending should be about the Pikes, in the same way that Lost was about the connections between those who were on the island. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is willing to give something more experimental a chance.

Two cousins must find a way to connect their two halves of the same city blown apart across dimensions by a myserious weatherbomb, one stuck in perpetual summer and the other in pemanent winter. A clever, multi-layered novel with a premise I haven't come across before. It sits more in the speculative fantasy space than sci-fi, blending stories about folklore and technology. The partnership between Langmead and Whiteley works well, creating distinct voices for Esther and Jamie. Overall a really fun and interesting read.

I read this courtesy NetGalley and Titan Books. A city divided into extremes because of what we are told is a weatherbomb (all too reasonable, with the rise of technology and reckless disregard of humanity in general), we have a story that looks at how mankind has to adapt in horrific weather climate circumstances. Cousins Jamie and Esther are trapped on opposing sides of Fairharbour, where one side of the city is basically frozen, like Narnia with the White Witch always winter, and the other side of the city is the opposite, all glaring summer. How they survive, what really happened, and the remaining, mesmerizing films of their late grandmother, the famed filmmaker Carmen Pike, used as commentary of their separate existences makes this story a memorable one.

#CityofAllSeasons #NetGalley

I thought that the City of All Seasons had such a cool premise & a fresh twist on the whole seasonal powers/locations theme. I really liked how the world felt unique and different from others in the genre, even though it plays with some familiar ideas. The atmosphere was strong, and the concept kept me interested throughout. Overall, a really solid and creative take on a well-loved theme!

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC!

This book was a weird but interesting combination of whimsy fairy tale and sci fi/fantasy shenanigans. Not sure which category to put it in because it has elements of all of them and they really don’t work that well together in this story.

The writing was good but also I kept wanting to skip ahead, wanting to get to the point. Lots of repetitive storytelling and while I enjoyed how the family and town lore fed into what was happening, it only seemed to make me more confused. The magic system didn’t make sense for example.

While I enjoyed learning about the mystery about the twin cities, this story was not for me. 3.5/5 ⭐️

I saw another review that likened this book to a fairytale, and I totally agree with that assessment - namely in the convenient “unexplainableness” of the magic, the narrative distance from the characters, and the side characters as caricatures.

I kept reaching for something deeper and hitting a wall. Jamie and Esther were around 18 years old, but they felt like 30+ year old adults. Even their nostalgia wasn’t very teenage. So even though the sundering kind of had to happen when they were still kids, in order to hold up their part in the mystery, and they couldn’t have been separated for too long because the winter city would definitely run out of food and supplies eventually (shocked it hadn’t happened already - and the practicalities of living there weren’t explained at all), it just didn’t feel right. I kept wondering like “where do they get food? How do they handle medical emergencies? What sort of infrastructure exists beyond a cult of angry men on both sides?”

Overall, and especially with the various side characters who act as different levels of villain throughout the story, it felt more like one long drawn-out metaphor rather than a story in its own right. With long chapters that sometimes only amounted to passing a whimsical device to their counterpart, despite its length the pacing suffered and it began to feel repetitive.

My favorite parts were the flashbacks to the family memories and the films.

Since the alleged weatherbomb eight years ago, Jamie is trapped in perpetual Winter, so cold it is dangerous where the Doormen brick the city shut. Esther is trapped in a sweating Summer where there exits the Fenestration to make holes in everything.
The cousins realise that perhaps their missing loved ones didn’t disappear or die, perhaps they exist in an overlaid city. They start exchanging objects they tinker with, trying to remember the past and figure out the future.

We have two cities composed of opposites - more than just their weather. one wants to preserver everything, one wants to tear everything down and start again.

You could viscerally feel the weather. The biting cold and dripping sun.

<b>Perhaps we only learn to stand up against others when they take away our places to sit.
</b>
I would say this is more magical realism than science fiction or fantasy. There are a lot of unanswered questions or impossible happenings that are breezed over. However, I felt fairly satisfied with the scant information and confusion of the characters themselves that this didn’t detract too much.

The ending was anti-climatic and rushed. It felt like they ran out of steam when the twist was revealed.

This would make a brilliant film and I wonder if that was in the authors’ minds as their grandmother (the moving piece of this story), is a famous artistic genius.

Random side note: It took me a while to realise Jamie was a boy.

Physical arc gifted by Titan Books.