Author From Chicago:
Pub Date 14 May 2024
Tor Publishing Group, Tor Books
General Fiction (Adult) | Sci Fi & Fantasy
Under 200 pages (Novella)
My Review:
5/5
I was drawn to this book because of the excellent cover and famous author.
From the best-selling author of the Divergent series comes an under 200-page dark urban fantasy with witches, Baba Jaga, Knights of a Holy Order with magic and bone swords, and Polish-inspired demons. It took me a moment to dive into the first chapters, but it soon became nonstop. Also has a lot of action.
Dark fairy tale creatures who crossed the ocean more than four hundred years ago to live among us. They feed on human fear and anger. I love that the author focused on fear and anger as the top emotions that feed these monsters. If there are two emotions this city will teach us and we can't get away from, are these precisely, and in this order.
This was an amazing (fast) read. It is even more interesting if you live in Chicago or recognize the streets and locations (and cultural traits of the city) mentioned in this story. More if you walk by these locations every day in your daily routine, as I do. I will never look at the Uptown Theatre the same way.
It is filled with magic and amazing creative characters. The romance is very soft, but LGTBQ and I love both characters. Makes me want to read more about them because the book ends with a decision, and that decision can lead to new beginnings.
Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher for this e-ARC.
From the Publisher:
Step into a city where monsters feast on human emotions, knights split their souls to make their weapons, and witches always take more than they give.
Pain is Dymitr’s calling. To slay the monsters he’s been raised to kill, he had to split his soul in half to make a sword from his own spine. Every time he draws it, he gets blood on his hands.
Pain is Ala’s inheritance. When her mother died, a family curse to witness horrors committed by the Holy Order was passed onto her. The curse will claim her life, as it did her mother’s, unless she can find a cure.
One fateful night in Chicago, Dymitr comes to Ala with a bargain: her help in finding the legendary witch Baba Jaga in exchange for an enchanted flower that just might cure her. Desperate, and unaware of what Dymitr really is, Ala agrees.
But they only have one day before the flower dies . . . and Ala's hopes of breaking the curse along with it.
“Lovely, lush, and full of otherworldly longing, this modern fairy tale is Roth at her most imaginative and ethereal.”—OLIVIE BLAKE, New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six
Comments