I read all of the books that have been written in this world and i think this one has echoes of the first one. The spin off did not intrigue me nearly as much as this one did. I love stories where the character has to discover things about themselves and their past is as much a mystery to them as it is to us. What sold this was not just the mystery around Ulla but also around Eliana, her character was quirky and fun. She really is a stand out character for this book. The mystery around Ulla and Eliana blood and then the plot twist at the end wow i want Morning Flower like yesterday. Great start to what i am sure will be a amazing series.

I must confess I've never read a book by Amanda Hocking so this was my first time discovering the magical world of Trylle where there are all kinds of trolls but not only.

In The Lost City, you'll meet Ulla, a girl that was left as a baby. Kind strangers took her and raised her while telling her stories about how she came to be with them. One day, an opportunity arises and she's able to have an internship where she might discover who her parents where and where she came from. There, she'll meet Pam, her love interest and other characters.

Unfortunately, not a lot of progress is made in her search that might lead her to royalty. Instead, she spent a lot of time helping a girl who seem to be amnestic. No one knows who she is or what happened to her but she seems to be running from something. The identities of those after her were pretty obvious to me and I have to say while I was entertained and enjoyed this book, I wish we'd learn more about Ulla and I feel like not a lot happened in this book. I don't think this book managed to hook me enough to make me want to read book two either.

(Thank you for letting me read and review an ARC via Netgalley)

The Lost City
by Amanda Hocking

this is an interesting look at trolls and history. I was amazed by the depth of the story. I was connected immediately to the characters and lost in the mystery. A great young adult reader book. talking about internships, and historical research in a mystical and new way. It was a great book for teaching children to learn from their opportunity.
The beginning does not show the depth of the book. Very close to other books of fantasy. With a mystery with a twist. Fantasy with a twist. The Trolls have begun to become more and more to the for front of fantasy writing. This story focuses on the troll history and its influence to Viking or Norse mythology. The book looks into the influence and loss of control that the trolls had in history.

Having read Hocking's other trilogies based on the world of trolls (Trylle and Kanin), this novel met my expectations. It was an engaging story about a girl on the road to self-discovery. Ulla and her friends deal with prejudice, racism, classism, and lives either as orphans or as having lost an important member of their family. We meet characters from previous series and we get to see how their lives have moved forward. 9+

As a Canadian, I also really enjoyed the mention of some Canadian cities. I remember when Nunavut was declared a territory in Canada and it was delightful to reminisce about that event while reading mentions of Ulla's time in Iqualuit.

There are many questions that remain unanswered, but this is a trilogy, so I am hopeful that these questions will be answered later.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for providing a copy of this eARC for review.

3.47 out of 5 Stars

In The Lost City is a wonderful spin-off of the author's Trylle Trilogy that follows a new protagonist, Ulla Tulin, as she tries to discover her parents and heritage. You do not need to have read neither the Trylle Trilogy nor the other spin-off series The Kanin Chronicles to follow this book. (Sorry there were so many negatives in that sentence haha!) Personally, I haven't read The Kanin Chronicles, but I totally remember loving the Trylle Trilogy back in high school. Now, I don't want to share my age, but let's just say it's been a minute since I've been in high school, so I read those books a while ago. But I remember loving them and loving the pacing and the originality of a book with trolls as the main characters.

The Lost City dives even deeper into this troll territory and I just love exploring new books that have unique/less common fantastical elements. How many other books are out there with whole troll societies and main characters?? And we really get to see a lot of interesting dynamics between the different kinds of trolls in this book, as well as some Norse mythology which was a delightful added bonus. Ulla is determined to trace her bloodline and any ancient genealogy books she can find in order to figure out who her parents are. She had been left with the owners of an inn back when she was a baby, and the only real working clue she has to guide her on this path is her mother's name, Orra.

The attempted discovery of Ulla's mother is only part of the plot. There's also the exploration of a great magical city (Mimirin) and some random strangers that don't quite fit in with the rest of the trolls. It was all very interesting, but it wasn't clear how all the individual pieces matched up with each other and there was no high-risk plot connecting everything until the end. So unfortunately, all of that great set-up sort of consumed the pages until about 60% of the way through for me. At that point, there were finally enough signals and larger events happening that I was able to go "What's going to happen next?" and really feel engaged with the plot.


Part of what I'm waffling on a little bit here as well is that the book was a really easy read. Like, I think it could be a middle-grade read. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there didn't seem, to me at least, to be any content or themes that would make the book inappropriate for a middle-grade audience. However, it is labeled as a young adult book and the main character is old enough to be venturing into the world on her own. In my mind, that puts the book in a weird market whereby middle-grade readers are trying to relate to a character that is experiencing things that they haven't come to experience yet, but also young adult readers could get frustrated if they feel like they aren't challenged enough.

Reading level and set-up aside, it was a very original world and story that I loved seeing unfold and develop. There were also great relationships between the characters. I absolutely loved how close Ulla was with all of the kids and how she was essentially Hanna's older sister in Mimirin. There's just such a sweet and powerful message there about choosing your family and being accepted by those you love.

The Lost City is perfect for you if you are looking for a fun and light fantasy novel. It had all the creativity and magic with so few pitfalls that I think would really brighten up any reader's TBR. Plus, I have a good feeling about where the series could be heading so I think it's a good idea to check this one out!

4.25 Stars

Oh, to be back in Amanda Hocking's troll world. Ah, I love this place.

This book was just as amazing as the previous entries in the troll world! I loved the little bits we got to see of characters from previous books at the beginning and that just made me jump right back into the world I love and missed.

Ulla is a great character. She seems like she has a great head on her shoulders despite that she hasn't had the ideal life. All of the characters were really well done and I loved getting to learn more about them as the story progressed.

I like the idea that we're not only discovering the origins of Ulla, but also the troll world as a whole. That makes for a good bit of mystery and I do really enjoy mystery in my books.

Overall, I really enjoyed this, I flew right through it and moved immediately on to the sequel!

Cover 4; characters 4; Plot 4; Pace 5; Writing 4; Enjoyment 5.

This was my first book from Amanda Hocking. I tried to read it as a standalone, without reading the previous trilogy, but I struggled to feel invested in the world building. I think those who read her previous books would really like it. I was hoping to enjoy this one, but it was ultimately a DNF at 28%

Okay so I read the Trylle trilogy way back when it first came out and really enjoyed it. I saw that Amanda Hocking was coming out with a spin off of that series and thought why the heck not dive into this and see what’s going on in the troll world. A whole lot of talking is going on in the troll world, and lies, we are back to lying again. The girl on the cover is gorgeous and she’s supposed to be Ulla but in the book Ulla describes herself practically like a rectangle, actually I think she uses those exact words.

Amanda Hocking does a wonderful job with world building, I loved the thought of the new city with all the different types of trolls and buildings. Oh and the names of the people are amazing. I liked getting to visit with old characters and of course we get tons of new characters in this one.

Ulla as a character to me hasn’t proven she is strong per see. She’s got emotional baggage obviously from being left behind and being raised by a sort of loving home in the beginning. However she’s tough in the sense that she is overcoming many obstacles in her past and she has been taught a lot by living with Finn and his family. I kind of wish she would’ve had a little more conflict in the city so I could’ve gotten a little more feeling for what kind of a character she was under pressure. She’s a very loving character she treated Finn and his family like her family which is shown by how she doesn’t freak out that Hannah is with her.

The side characters are always more liked by me, Pan is definitely a keeper. He’s so comfortable in his own skin and with who he is, I really enjoyed all of his moments with Ulla and his dog. I loved Ulla’s roommate and her love/hate relationship with having people around, I would love to see more of her archery skills.

What an interesting world. I really enjoyed the unique setting and how different the main character Ulla is but I especially enjoyed her kind heart. I also enjoyed the side characters especially Pan. Pan was amazing I really loved his personality and I can’t wait to read more about him! I actually purchased a hard copy for my class and I am sure my students will enjoy reading it! Thank you Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to receive a copy.

"The Lost City" by Amanda Hocking was almost a four-star read except for the very, very abrupt ending. I enjoyed the voice and writing style and thought the world building was unique and interesting. I liked all the characters and the very slow burn developing romance. I've never read anything else by Hocking before, but I didn't have any trouble getting into her world anyway.
But, in the end, the whole book felt like an Act I that was just starting to get somewhere and then it ended. I suppose it's the first in the series, but I feel like each book in a series ought to have its own satisfying, complete arc, not be one story cut into three chunks. So, for that incompleteness I give this three stars. It wasn't even a cliff hanger ending, it really was just like we were beginning to build up to the climax and—nothing. I still don't even understand what mysteries I'm supposed to be wondering about, things are still that vague. At least some mysteries should be resolved in the first book—something needs to be resolved, I should feel both closure and the need to read the next book and find out more. For all that I sincerely enjoyed the writing style enough that I could sit through this main character literally brushing her teeth and not mind it, I still needed some actual plot for this book to really do it for me.

**I received this book from netgalley in exchange for a review**

She rode in on the back of a dark storm, and she left before the sun.†

FULL DISCLOSURE: I had the original Trylle trilogy on my TBR for years. I requested book 1 and 2 of this new trilogy on whim, and decided to finally read the Trylle trilogy before diving into this. I did not like the Trylle trilogy at all. I felt it was poorly written, and I hated almost every single character. My hopes were not very high going in to this afterwards (I skipped the Kanin trilogy)...

That being said, I feel like Amanda Hocking has really grown as a writer. This book was very well written compared to Trylle. She did a fantastic job of describing the world and the setting. (NOTE: You can absolutely read this book without reading Trylle/Kanin. There are MINOR references, but Hocking does an excellent job at recapping for new readers). With the original trilogy, I remember having a hard time following some of the canon/ vocabulary being used. With this book, the author was sure to explain words/acronyms/contexts in the moment. She was also much better at showing > telling.

I truly enjoyed this book. It does read as younger YA (despite drinking and f-bombs) and I think I might have LOVED this if I was ten years younger. The reason this book lost a star from me is because I spent the entire time reading waiting for something to happen. There isn't any intense action until very late in the book, and there isn't any romance. (As a reader, romance is a MUST for me in YA fantasy). I am looking forward to book 2, because book 1 really felt like a build-up volume. [PLUS, I LOVE ME SOME ROAD-TRIPS! (hide spoiler)]

I absolutely ADORE the character Dagne. She’s highly intelligent, no-nonsense, and a skilled archeress. Plus it’s always great to see [asexual (hide spoiler)] representation. She truly made this book for me. I devoured any scenes she was a part of.


†check against final text

This story is set in the same world as Amanda Hocking’s Trylle series.
This is about Ulla, a young troll girl who gets abandon as a baby and then goes on years later to try and find out who her parents were and what happened to them. It takes a different path than I was expecting and focuses more on a girl she meets, Eliana.
It was a first book in a series and it definitely shows it, it does a lot of setting up for later. It offers a lot of explanations and history on the world and how it works, but leaves the plot lacking.
The character and world building was fine but it just dragged a bit, since nothing was really happening.
I will continue to see where the story goes.

The world building puts.you into the story. And the characterization of the characters makes them more believable. With twists and turns just around the corner makes you dive deeper in and can’t get out till the end.. I feel the author did it again with the start of this series. Can’t wait to see what the rest of the books hold.

The Lost City was a pretty feel-good fantasy in that the stakes didn’t seem super high, but it was still enjoyable to read. The characters are charming and while the plot didn’t totally grip me, I feel like tonally this was a nice pandemic read that let me ponder a while about a fantasy world that is parallel to our own world.

I should say that this is my first Amanda Hocking book and I believe this is the start of a spin-off series to her earlier books. So I didn’t have the background of previous knowledge about this fantasy work. While I don’t think this greatly deterred my enjoyment, I did struggle a bit with understanding the scope of the world-building. It felt like there was lots of info-dumping at times in the narration or even just in the characters’ dialogue that felt kind of unnatural for me to believe that these characters would actually explain to one another verbatim. I do think this world has interesting potential with a lot of background and history for the different groups of trolls and other creatures featured in the story.

My major gripe was that it felt like a middle grade read, even though the main characters were firmly in YA. The language often seemed juvenile and the plot seemed to steer clear of taking risks and getting into the real nitty-gritty of what I think was intended to be a pretty dark fantasy world.

Overall, I was underwhelmed, but still intrigued enough to keep reading Hocking’s other novels!

Comparable books:
Tithe by Holly Black
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
UnEnchanted by Chanda Hahn

***I received a free e-ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 30%

I never do this, but I tried. I really tried. And I just couldn’t do it.

Part of it could just be that I’m not interested in this book right now, but I really think it has to do with everything else.

I was going to try and make it through until the interesting stuff started happening, but I was just sooo bored. Like 30% in and nothing had happened yet. Like at all.

The characters were dull, too. Even for being trolls. Nothing about them really stood out to me and several just seemed unnecessary. I just didn't care what happened to them at all, even the main character.

I’ve heard some good things about the author's other series based in this world, but I did not get a good sense from this at all. The writing itself was super weak. The dialogue was awkward and clunky. The descriptions were boring and definitely told, instead of showed. Nothing about this book said to me "this is a good author." And I hate that, I really do. Maybe someday I'll take a gander at her other books just to compare, but I doubt it. This just isn't the author for me.

I was intrigued by the premise at first, but not enough to suffer through this.

Overall, I just cannot.

The Lost City is the first book in The Omte Origins series, which is a spin off of the Trylle series, it can be read without having previously read the Trylle series, but fans of the Trylle series may appreciate it more. As soon as I saw that a spin off was coming out I was so excited. I couldn’t wait until closer to publication to read this book because I was so happy to have gotten an ARC and needed to read it right away, so I did hold my review until now. I am super excited that I can continue on to the next installment right away because I already have that ARC as well!

In many ways this book kind of felt like a prequel, as I felt like it set the scene for the upcoming adventure that will be in book two. Plot wise there wasn’t a ton that really happened and I do have to admit that by the end I had so many questions and not many answers. There was a lot of world building going on and the fact that the setting was basically a troll history research site really helped give context to the world and made it feel real. I thought that I might get bored with the book considering that a lot of it is about Ulla researching her own genealogy, but despite the fact that the book wasn’t action packed I was still incredibly invested.

It was the characters that really made this book great. Ulla was a pretty level protagonist and while I really did like her, it was the the side characters that I truly loved. Pan was a romantic interest that I really liked, he was so kind hearted and the growing romance between him and Ulla was so sweet. Hanna was my favorite though. She was so bubbly and full of excitement that her happiness just rubbed off on the other characters. Eliana fascinated me and I can’t wait to find out more about her, but I really hope that Hanna is in book 2 because Hanna and Eliana’s friendship was a big highlight of this story for me.

Overall I think that this is a great spin off. Fans of the Trylle series will definitely enjoy this book. It isn’t action packed, but it has great characters and world building and Amanda Hocking’s writing is always captivating. I think this is probably a series that I would prefer to binge read. It’s hard not to be able to dive right into the next book after finishing this one.

I've heard so many good things about this author's previous series, so I was really hyped going into this. While it was an enjoyable read, I found it to be just fine. Nothing really new or spectacular, but a fun read nonetheless.

OMG...This book took me a minute to get into but once I did I absolutely loved it. As an infant Ulla was left with an elderly inn keeper and his wife on a cold and blustery night. She gets out of her small town and takes care of a family and in turn they help her get an internship that will help her figure out who her parents were. There are lots of twists and turns in this book but I absolutely loved it because I wasn't able to figure out what would happen next. I love Amanda Hocking's writing and look forward to continuing this series really soon (I hope).

I was super excited for this book but sadly there was a disconnect between me and the story. I may try picking it up at a later time.

The Lost City gracefully finds a woman's true identity through a journey of belonging and not belonging in a world where she doesn't hold any knowledge about her parents. In an intricately built world that incorporates technological fantasy into complex history, this young woman is supported by a sweet boy and placed in a romantic trope of love triangles by bringing a mysterious stranger to the equation. Despite serving quite a few interesting bits and leaving the readers hanging for more towards the end, the book doesn't fare absolutely well in terms of pacing and overtly description of this world being set. However, the easy writing and going back to the highly loved tropes—some might be cliches—in addition to the positive plus-size body representation.