I forgot to leave a review for this, but I really enjoyed it! It's been out for ages, so I won't say much more than I need to for my star rating. <3

I loved this story! It's a Count of Monte Cristo retelling and I've been so excited for it. It lived up to my hopes and so much more. It is a bit slow for the first couple of chapters and the scene is set, but once the action begins, the pace doesn't slow down. Loved it!

This book was great! While it had a bit of a slow start, I was hooked about 4 chapters in and couldn’t put it down after that. There is a whole lot of world building which I loved but I know it’s not for everyone. The characters were great and felt real. No one was perfect which made it all the easier to get into. The storyline was fantastic. The ending felt a bit rushed but that could be because of the multiple POVs. In any case, I can’t wait for the next book.

I was so excited for this book! A Count of Monte Cristo retelling by Tara Sim?!? Yes, please! Unfortunately, this one is not for me. I loved idea of having an ensemble cast and not truly one main character but it was not executed well here. Taesia gets most of the focus and it leaves the other characters in the ensemble feeling a bit flat. Also, the plot was slow and dull and way too long. I kept not wanting to pick it back up. The writing is beautiful and descriptive and the magic system was intriguing but felt info dumpy in places. What I liked about it was far outweighed by what I didn't like. I ended up DNFing this around the 40% mark.

Rating : 3 out of 5
Blurbs :
The Four Realms—Life, Death, Light, and Darkness—all converge on the City of Dusk. For each realm there is a god, and for each god there is an heir.

But the gods have withdrawn their favor from the once vibrant and thriving metropolis. And without it, all the realms are dying.

Unwilling to stand by and watch the destruction, the four heirs—Angelica, an elementalist with her eyes set on the throne; Risha, a necromancer fighting to keep the peace; Nikolas, a soldier who struggles to see the light; and Taesia, a shadow-wielding rogue with a reckless heart—will become reluctant allies in the quest to save their city.

But their rebellion will cost them dearly.

Thoughts :
To think that this is a 500+ pages worth of YA book. This is kind of messy and I hope it could be shorter. I will still try the next book within this series. Thanks Netgalley for the early copy!

I really wanted to like this book! The cover is stunning and the synopsis sounded so good, I just couldn’t get into it. I thought that it would read more adult but it didn’t seem that way to me. It’s a bummer too because I had such high hopes for this one. At least the cover is nice.

With high hopes fueled by the resounding acclaim that had reached my ears regarding Tara Sim's enigmatic creation, The City of Dusk, my anticipation was a bonfire of desire, yearning to embrace this literary realm. Regrettably, the stars did not align for such an affectionate union. Amidst the tapestry of enchanting magic and vibrant panoramas that adorned the landscape, a tapestry woven with impeccable skill, many factors emerged that thwarted the intimacy I sought with the narrative.

Taesia's narrative arc, replete with intrigue and incident, takes center stage, seemingly monopolizing the canvas of attention. A shadow, however, is cast upon the supporting characters, their potential obscured or undernourished, generating an inequity that rang discordant to my reader's sensibilities. Amongst this ensemble, none etched an enduring mark upon my memory, and none left an indelible fingerprint upon my emotions, rendering their paths less traversed within my engagement.

Frankly, the plot often meandered through stretches of mundanity, akin to a tranquil river occasionally stirred by fleeting tempestuous gusts. While flashes of action and adventure did grace the pages, they resembled brief meteoric dashes across the nocturnal sky, scarce and transient. Curiously, the essence that imbued the world of Nexus with an intoxicating allure, its intricate and opulent magic system, inadvertently transformed into an ambivalent double-edged sword. The captivating expanse of knowledge and detail often overwhelmed the narrative's tempo, conferring upon it an unwarranted heft. For a tale of ostensibly uncomplicated design, The City of Dusk bore, at times, the weight of needless embellishment.

Nonetheless, within this labyrinth of prosaic expression, Tara Sim's penmanship unfurled like a masterful tapestry, her prose a symphony of elegance. Though occasionally veering toward the density of a rich confection, her words retained a captivating allure. Yet, this allure was entangled in a web of elaborate exposition, a veritable cascade of information that cascaded forth with little restraint, a tidal wave of backstory and elucidations that besieged the reader from the outset. An aura of overabundance lingered as if the author juggled a kaleidoscope of ideas, some regrettably slipping through the sieve of coherence. A few crevices in the edifice of world-building, all the more glaring against the backdrop of its intricacy, hinted at the challenge of balancing innovation with coherence.

Ultimately, a single question unfurls its significance, an inquisitive lighthouse that guides the currents of this critique: Did the tale kindle the flames of enjoyment within me? Alas, while aversion was not its fruit, neither was it the nectar of rapture. I confess the anticipation of its conclusion coursed through me on more than one occasion, eager to close the chapter and pivot toward fresh horizons. Despite the fragments that sparked admiration within me for The City of Dusk, I lament to admit that the symphony of our sojourn fell short of the crescendo I had sought, prompting a hesitant stance toward any prospective continuation of this symphonic series.

This is a book I had a really had time trying to get into and had to keep putting down time and time again. I'm not fully sure if it was just me or the book, but I just could not get into this book, and this is me officially acknowledging that I'm unlikely to ever get back into this book. The further I got, the more I knew, this wasn't for me, and this is an author I like.

City of Dusk is a fantastic adventure fantasy with a heaping scoop of mythology as well. The story moves fast keeping the reader engaged, jumping from plot point to plot point. While the story moves quite fast there is still a lot of setting details and character development that occurs along the way. I appreciate that in the character cast we get to see many different types of people portrayed as strong and for different reasons. I also loved the inclusion of what felt like very natural relationship developments both between characters and bringing in side characters to the main plot.

One aspect that I would have liked more work done was on Dante's story, i feel like there was a good amount of detail and development towards the start but closer to the end there is less detail and it felt at times like the plot had skipped a few details. In subsequent books it is entirely possible that these are filled in to help the reader understand more about his motivations and what information he was working with at any given time.

Overall I loved this book and would love to read more in the series as well as more from this author.

This book started so strong for me. I was immediately drawn by the worldbuilding, the characters and the magic system. I literally devoured the first few chapters so fast, I was totally hooked. At one point though, I know I was a bit confused by the name of the realms, the cities, the continents, every place really :') I loved the intrigues, the plot twist, the ambiance, it was totally my jam.

Thank you to Orbit and Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. 


⭐3 stars⭐


This book seemed right up my alley when I first read the synopsis and though I enjoyed it overall, it’s unfortunately not a series that I will continue right now. Would I revisit it int he future? I might, but it’s not a priority right now.
The premise and the characters were interesting and intrigued me at first; around the 50-75% marks I found the story really intriguing and was reading quickly. However, at the 80% mark I start to lose interest and investment in the story and it was a bit tough to finish off the novel. The story itself, was set up to give us surprises and tie loose ends, but it sometimes felt like filler vs feeling genuinely surprised.
At first the atmosphere and world were tricky to become immersed in, we have four houses with differing issues and powers. The atmosphere was definitely mysterious, all four gods were intriguing since we didn’t have too much information about them, and the sealing felt mysterious but also strange that all the characters in the world had just accepted this as is?
I really enjoyed that we had the different sets of magic and added to my intrigue even more. The four different POVs (really 5) were more than I expected!
As I stated before, the characters were interesting and controversial, I did enjoy how they each came with their own very distinct personalities and challenges. They all each had their dark sides and their dark secrets as well. I personally enjoy complex characters, and so I really loved the way these characters were constructed.
The writing style felt more like a YA/NA novel than an adult novel, and so it was certainly very accessible. I think the adult parts of the book were the darker and more complex parts vs the writing style. I enjoy a more accessible writing style, and I think it’s easier for readers of all ages.
Finally, I always rate books on my own enjoyability as the fifth criteria. I did enjoy this book, as I said before though I started to lose interest at the 80% mark and started to be very intrigued at the 50% mark, so this book wasn’t as enjoyable as other books I’ve read recently but I still did enjoy it enough to read it and be curious about the end.

Overall, this was a good book, but not one that I am very excited for, and I’m not sure that I would continue in this series.

City of Dusk follows 4 young heirs to the noble houses of the city of Vitae. This city has been "sealed" away from magic by the gods. However, the noble houses retain their standing in the political structure of the city because they are descended from the gods, and can wield powerful magics. As the first installment, this book is long and has serious pacing issues. The world itself is vague and I had a hard time understanding whether it was a country that was sealed, just the city? The entire planet? It wasn't grounded very well in a reality. Additionally, the decision by the audio narrator to read the different heirs with different accents from English to Indian to Welsh (was it?) made this lack of understanding of the world even more confusing. The characters fluctuate between kind of likeable to downright arrogant. If anything, this book shows how the people in power always think they know what is best, and when they even have a glimpse of what the rest of the world experiences, their Devine knowledge enlightened, we are to praise them for being so forward thinking. I found the inner monologues to be long winded and unnecessary. I also did not enjoy the 4 part split of the narrative, and the chapters beginning again at 1, when we are clearly on the same plot line and no significant time has passed. I found this made an already too long book, seem longer. I have enjoyed this author in the past, and I will likely continue the series, but this first installment was not all I'd hoped it would be.

3/5

This was an interesting reading experience. I found that I feel very middle of the road with this book. I enjoyed it well enough. I know that this was Tara Sim's first book in adult fantasy and I felt like that was pretty obvious as far as the writing was concerned. I felt like everything was just okay. I just don't have too much to say. Again, I'm sure this has to do with it being the first book in a series and the first adult book they have written.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for giving me free access to the advanced copy of this book to read.

it never quite gets a handle on what separates adult fantasy from young adult fantasy. i otherwise enjoyed the characters and the story

Having enjoyed Tara Sim's previous work, I was excited when The City Of Dusk was made available on NetGalley, and was excited to be granted access to the eARC prior to its release. My download expired when I was just a couple of chapters in, and then I did not get my hands on another copy until well after it was out on shelves. However, even after finally procuring a copy, I struggled with this book. The concept is strong - a city that lays at the crossroads of (essentially) heaven and hell, an aging king with no heir, noble families jockeying for position, and their teenage children uninterested in the politicking, but granted the power and the magic nonetheless.

I made it about halfway through the book - with a lot of effort - before I finally gave up, because it was moving glacially slowly. There were too many character POVs and several of them were a slog to reach the plot and the POVs that seemed to move it. I debated for a long time whether to even post a review, given that this was a rare DNF for me, but I do feel strongly that there's an interesting concept and a rich fantasy world that other readers may enjoy, even though it did not work for me.

The City of Dusk by Tara Sim is a promising and lengthy first installment of The Dark Gods series. From the point of view of young heirs of the four realms burdened with the responsibilities of their families, we dive into this dark fantasy. Continue reading down below for my opinions on this new release.

I had to double-check, but The City of Dusk technically is an adult fantasy. The writing, however, feels more geared towards a young adult audience. I’m not sure if it is just the fact that the main characters are young adults and feel in a way coming of age responsibilities (with obvious dark fantasy twists). I don’t think the dark fantasy feel is enough to make it more adult than young adult. Not that this is a huge issue, but if you prefer not to read young adult, keep this in mind.

The world-building was A LOT in The City of Dusk. This was an immense book! Sim does a great job of figuring out how the world, its magic, politics, and culture works. I really appreciated how well thought out it was. This sets up the next book to not need to explain away anything or do too much leg work to help build the world.

The attention to world-building unfortunately was a detriment to the plot. The pacing was up and down, with some parts really picking up and dragging in others. Given this pacing, the plot was lacking in some ways. Not a lot actually seemed to happen as the world was being set up.

There were several different narrators, several of them heirs to the noble houses, each with different magical abilities. Even though it was a long book, it seemed that certain narrators were given more of a central role. Granted, I enjoyed these central characters, such as Taesia. I just would have expected more depth from these characters considering the length of the book. This opens up an opportunity for the second installment.

Overall
It was an interesting book. Since the word count spent much of the time on creating the social and political structure and the working of magic in this world, its plot was lacking. This does not put me off as I will be looking out of the second book in this new Dark Gods series.

This story was kind of set up for failure by focusing on pushing a plot / forcing the main characters together without establishing the world first. By the 1/4 mark, I had no idea how any of the four types of magic worked (such as what limits their were, how people who weren't in the four houses used them, which magic "anyone" could use vs which were specific to a family and why, what the familiar were and what they did)... I was left with so many questions that I didn't have bandwidth to care about the characters who were practically shouting for my attention.

I was definitely a fan of the queernormative world, and I could have gotten behind it a bit more if we'd only focused on two POV characters (my preference would have been Taesia and Risha, and not just because they were the first two we got introduced to).

This book was a little confusing at the start. It was hard to keep all the gods and their heirs straight, but it became much more enjoyable once I was able to hold all of that information in my head and keep it straight. The guide in the beginning was very helpful and I referred to it many times.

As the book progresses, it becomes very important to have a firm grasp on that knowledge as there are many moving parts and many plots happening at the same time. It was a little convoluted and I had to reread a few sections a few times to understand what was actually happening. But I am definitely going to be picking up the next book and giving it a chance so I can find out what happens to all the characters! Overall, this is a good start to a series.

Thank you to NetGalley, Orbit Books, and Tara Sim for an e-arc of The City of Dusk in exchange for an honest review.

I liked the story, but the magic system was very confusing for me. I think if better developed upon this could be a truly gripping story.