I love Tara Sim. She’s a great author who knows how to tell a story and how to set a scene well.

The City of Dusk is a vivid world filled with fantastic characters that I can’t get enough of.

I do feel like the book could have been cut down just a tad, but it didn’t hinder my enjoyment and I’m greatly looking forward the next book.

It’s a low 4 stars for me, I found it a bit over long for the amount of story but it’s also setting up a world and a lot of characters so it’s a minor complaint not a big one. I think this is being marketed as adult but the characters are all young heirs to their houses who are only just adults. I think an older teen would like it too.
There’s some mild sexuality but nothing explicit. I think the worst might be a character leaving a courtesan in the morning and admiring her beauty as they go. I am certain that unless you have a completely and utterly cloistered teen they’ve seen something more explicit by 16. I would not recommend it under about 16 though.
The characters were well developed, the magic system was interesting and since we mostly saw a single city the world was well enough developed for a good read. I did check books two and three as to read on Goodreads. This one was more than good enough to make me want to read the series.

Sometimes it's nice to read a piece of well written, traditional fantasy. On the other hand, I really enjoy when a book takes your expectations around some tropes in a genre, lets you think it's all going to plan, and then really lets them go. Tara Sim's The City of Dusk falls into that second camp, as she sets up a world in which you (as a fan of epic fantasy) think things are going to go the way they always do, but the further in you get, the more you realize your misassumptions have colored your understanding of the story. The world building is top notch; as the first book in a series of epic fantasy, it's understandable if the author is either exposition heavy or provides too little detail, but Sim has walked that line masterfully. The characters, as young adults, present well, with emotions and maturity driving much of their decisions. I look forward to following along with the rest of this story.

Having seen this book seemingly everywhere and having enjoyed Tara Sim's YA work in the past, I was excited to dive into The City of Dusk. This book is definitely a long one and there's a lot going on, but I ultimately enjoyed it.

First off, the world building was glorious. Nexus was a lush and vibrant city - even as it was dying - that felt realistically full of multiple, occasionally clashing cultures all moving and living amongst each other. Some of my favorite moments of this book came as the characters explored different corners of the city, showing us glimpses into other lives. On top of that, the Four Realms felt just as concrete, as if I too had grown up hearing stories about them and the gods who ruled them.

Just as vibrant were the characters, with the 4 heirs (or 3 heirs and Taesia, as it starts) all feeling independent and distinct, which isn't always the case with multiple narrators. Julian too stood on his own, ultimately becoming one of my favorite characters as I found myself sucked into his journey to learn more about himself and the pull between him and Taesia.

That said, I did sometimes find that having - ultimately - 6 POV characters pulled me in too many directions, making it hard to keep track of how everyone was feeling and what they were up to at any given time. In some ways, Dante felt unnecessary, but given that his storyline was something of a backbone for the rest of the characters, I ended up wishing we had gotten more chapters from him, and perhaps fewer of the other heirs moping around and feeling conflicted.

Additionally, there were moments were the pacing seemed to slow unnecessarily, when no questions were answered and the POV characters were spinning their wheels as they waited for Godsnight to come. As I mentioned, The City of Dusk is a long book, and there were times when it felt that way.

Ultimately, though it was a long ride, it was a fun one, and I look forward to the sequel, thanks to that massive cliffhanger!

3.75/5

The City of Dusk is a sweeping fantasy novel following Four Nobel houses, each with a unique power, as they come together to stop an impending, multi dimensional war. Sim brings some lush world building and intriguing magic to the table here but as an overall story things felt a tad generic and underwhelming for me.

I think it is important to note that this was touted as an adult fantasy, my main source of contention with this writing is that it didn't read as one. The characters and world building all felt reminiscent of young adult literature. I expected more depth in both character and world building...sadly the only thing that felt like an adult fantasy for me was the length.

All that being said, Sims really can paint some beautiful imagery with her prose. She completely captivated me during our exploration of the four houses and their gods. The quality of writing was such that I would gladly pick up her future works as she continues to hone her craft.

In The City of Dusk we follow four noble houses as they come together to form an alliance to fight a war. There is a good combination of mystery, imagery, and darkness that immerses you into the realms but the lack of focus makes the length of the book a struggle to finish.

This book is marketed as an adult book but reads very YA and that might have hindered my excitement in reading. While I do love a good YA story the struggle occurred because I was expecting adult.

Maybe I'll have to try this book again at a later date. The concept is great but I just struggled to pick it up and read every day.

There is a lot to like about The City of Dusk. It's an interesting world with interesting characters and a plot you want to follow throughout the story. But there are things about this book that I just couldn't overlook and honestly took away from my reading experience. While I really liked this book, I wanted to love it. Thanks to Orbit Books for the gifted read.

So let's talk about this book for a moment. It's actually really good, but maybe my expectations were too high especially since this book is over 500 pages long, the start of an epic fantasy trilogy, and written by someone who isn't their first rodeo. But as much as I thought this book was really good, I also wasn't the biggest fan.

I am of two minds when it comes to this book. On one hand, you have this incredible world. The idea of these gods existing and there's this realm that's been cut off from them and there's conflict there and the heirs of these gods want to fix it. It felt straightforward and something that you can see filling the 500-page novel and more. Then you have these incredible compassionate characters who are supposed to hate each other, but you know that deep down they care. They're also so seriously flawed dealing with some real issues while also facing the scrutiny of their very important part in the whole fabric of the universe.

I loved getting to know these characters and I felt like there was more care put into them than into the plot. You see the kind of pressure they face and while this book is supposed to be for adults, it felt very young to read them going through their individual trials and also really relatable. But I felt like the care for these characters was a much bigger priority. I knew more about these characters and their flaws than I did about the world itself.

The part that really confused me was the world building. On a surface level, you get it. It's a world cut off from the rest of the realm. There's gods that each of these four main characters represent and this part I loved. I loved that there's this whole history with the gods and how they created human heirs who are blessed with their powers. They're looking for a way to save their world since crops are dying and resources are becoming scarce. And you follow along as they figure that out. But then you get to the finer details and it all gets confusing. There were big reveals that came out of the blue. There were people trying magic for the first time who didn't even know they had magic. There were conclusions people came to with very little evidence to support how they got there.

There were also other humans in this world with power. They're displaced refugees from these other realms and in those realms they have the same kind of magic that the heirs have and in some cases can wield them better than the heirs themselves. I think...

It's very clunky. I honestly felt like I was stuck in a maze in the dark at some points. Just when I think I figured it out, there's some new piece that confused me further. There was also a bit of confusion over the realms. While most of the action takes place in this city called Nexus (or The City of Dusk? That wasn't clarified either), there was an entire other world outside of that. I wanted more info about how that all worked because it felt super important to the story and there just wasn't enough for me to fully grasp it.

And there's so much you want to love about this book. There were points where I thought that I would. I really wanted to love it, but there were just so much that took away from it.

Overall, there's a lot to love about this book and a bunch of flaws as well. I wonder if this is a case of first adult fantasy jitters. I have a feeling that the second and third books in this trilogy will be better than this one. There was so much I loved about this book, but the tiny things I wasn't a fan of really put a damper on my reading experience. I liked it, but I wanted to love it and sadly, it didn't deliver that for me.

Thank you so much, NetGalley, Orbit Books and Orbit, for the chance to read this book in exchange of an honest review.

The Four Realms, Life, Deatg, Light and Darkness, converge on the City of Dusk. For each there's a god and for each god an heir. But long time ago they withdrew their favour from the city, sealing their own realms and leaving the city and their realms to slowly wither away. Determined to save their city and themselves, the four heirs of the noble houses decide to become allies and investigate on how prevent their destruction. What they will discover will change everything and everyone.

The City of Dusk is set in a wonderful and compelling world made of bone, shadow, light and life magic, with vengeful and cruel gods, hidden pasts, dangerous magic, chosen ones who don't really want to be chosen and it follows, mainly, the four heir of the four noble houses: Taesia, the middle child, willing to do anything to save her brother and her city, rebellious and stubborn, with her shadow-wielding abilities, Risha, the necromancer, who finds herself involved in dangerous practices, rogue spirits and new allies, Nikolas, a soldier with a painful past and a struggle to see the light and Angelica, an elementalist, unable to access her own full power, but determined to seize the throne.
Each gifted with divine power, each competing for the king's favour and each in a complex and uneasy alliance, between friendship, love and competition, each of them vie for the power.
Apparently they are fighting to get the king's favour, but the reality is much more complex, when the city starts to have rogue necromancers, spirits unable to cross to their realm, vengeful gods and a complex plot bent to destroy them all but one, in a realm-shattering war.

The city of dusk is a brilliant and thrilling story with a magnificent and very original worldbuilding, setting four heirs, four gods and four realm against one other, with uneasy alliances, shocking discoveries and a city threatened to disappear. The city itself is complex and well layered, with rivalries, nobles, refugees from closed off realms, injustices, demons and spirits.
One of the strength of this book, beside the intriguing and compelling worldbuilding and the amazing writing style that sucks the reader in the story right away, is the characterization and I really loved how the author made the characters tell the story. Taesia, Risha, Nikolas and Angelica are complex and well written, each of them burdened by family's expectations, duty, losses, vengeance and rebellion. It was a pleasure to understand their motives, to get to know them better, their pasts and affections, their loves and losses.
These characters, the main and the side ones, became my favourites right away, because I was drawn to their rage, determination, needs and curiosity. They are truly realistic in their problems, needs, dreams and reactions.
The author was able to interwine skillfully politics, magic, gods, with their own personal problems, crushes, relationships and quests, introducing new bonds and expanding the existing ones.
There are queer characters and potential couples and the story mixes adventure with romance, fantasy with politics in a well written novel.
After this ending, I can't wait to read what will happen next!

Thank you Netgalley for this incredible arc!

This was such a riveting and detailed fantasy. I would say it's a must read for fantasy lovers. I loved the dark and forbidden magic at the center of this tale mixed in with different kinds of characters from different factions who all had their own pov.

I can see how this wouldn't be everyone's favorite with the multiple pov's but I believe this story is breathtaking and worth people's attention. The politics, intrigue and relationships between families and heirs was one of my favorite parts. I love fantasy that is rich in these issues bc it's simply fascinating.

I would definitely recommend this!

Out March 22nd!

DNF @ 41%

What I loved about this book: The atmosphere and overall aesthetic. If you like witchy, celestial vibes (necromancy, shadow magic, connections to the sun and stars, cosmic alignment, different realms), this book delivers on that front.

What kept me from enjoying the book: I couldn't connect with the characters. This book follows 7 different POVs, which was too many considering every character was in the same location and working towards similar goals. Because we were constantly bouncing between so many, it felt like there wasn't much time to get to know any of them. While the cast was certainly diverse, each character felt archetypal and one-dimensional--particularly the mean girl and the edgy rebel.

While this book is being sold as adult, it definitely reads more on the YA side and I've seen a ton of reviews corroborating this. The characters read pretty young and immature, especially during the interactions between Angelica and Taesia.

I still recommend this book to those who are interested, because you may end up connecting with the characters better than I did.

The City of Dusk centers around a kingdom called Vaega, which is tied to four realms. Each realm has their own god, each god with their own House of descendants (known as The Four Noble Houses of Nexus). King Ferdinand is no such descendant, nor does he have an heir. Promising to choose one of the Houses to heir his throne on the holy day of celebration, Godsnight, the mounting pressure on each House to woo the citizens of Vaega is at an all time high. While the battling heirs tip-toe the tightrope of mastering their god-given powers and upholding the dignity of their families, the pressure boils over.

4/5

THIS WORLD. THE CHARACTERS. LOVE.

The pacing in this book is comparable to rolling a snowball down a giant hill. It starts very slow with lots of world building and hopscotching between five different viewpoints. Understanding the characters and their dynamics takes some time, but once the foundation is established, the pace picks up, and a couple more characters are thrown into the mix. By the midpoint, the story sinks its hooks in and speculations begin to arise about what twists are coming and how the characters might respond. The last third of the book was pure bingeworthy!

I love that romance took a backseat to the central story. There is already so much going on that focusing too much on a romance would dilute the plot. While not being a main focus, the “romance” included gives insight into the complexity of the characters and their development.

What is even more impressive is the dynamic range of characters. You’ve got your Chosen One(s), the Reluctant Hero, The Evil Overlord(s). Let’s not forget the wonderfully real LGBT+ characters, but I don’t want to give away too much of the juice. The land of misfit godspawn makes for a very interesting read.

My only real gripe about the book is that it was marketed as an Adult Fantasy, but I feel like it’s more of an Older YA Dark Fantasy. While there is plenty of body horror and gore (which I loved by the way), it still carried a youthful spirit.

If you’re looking for a slow-burn that catches into a raging fire, this is the one.

Thank you to Orbit Books and NetGalley for the review e-copy!

Thank you Netgalley and Orbit Books for this ARC!

Unfortunately, this book was not for me. The author went into great depth with the world building but it was a little confusing at times. A lot of the fantasy bullet points were hit but it could have been toned down. Some many kinds of magic plus throw in gods and realms. It was just.. a lot. It was very long and I was rather bored. The only character I really had any interest in was Taesia. There were many factors that would have made this a great pick for me seeing as fantasy is my genre of choice but in comparison to many others out there, it fell flat.

**Thank you Orbit Books for gifting me with an early copy. This is a 100% honest review**

The City of Dusk is a richly vivid story of power, sibling relationships, and familial expectations. I utterly adore how dark and gritty the city of Noctus is, and how intricately the magic system is woven into the fabric of the world. Taesia's relationship with the other house heirs was also incredibly interesting. I loved how they all worked off each other, pulling out their flaws and best qualities. The stakes grab you by the throat and refuse to let go, the story itself completely enthralling. I am beyond excited for the next book to come out.

I unfortunately did not enjoy "The City of Dusk". One of the reasons I requested it was because it was marketed as adult fantasy - but it actually read as a young adult novel with sex scenes, or "new adult" at best. Since I do not enjoy young adult anymore, the tone was definitely a let down.

The story is also fairly generic. I struggled to find one original element. The characters are standard fantasy archetypes, who, on top of their blandness, act like teenagers. I have not observed any character growth - they change in the physical sense by obtaining new powers, but stay stagnant emotionally. There is nothing compelling about them, nothing to hook into.

The worldbuilding is very detailed, but doesn't add anything new to things we've seen before. In fact, it gives the impression of borrowing tropes from the genre left and right (nothing wrong with borrowing) and mixing them all together for a bit of an incoherent soup. There is nothing unique, nothing new - and the blame largely lies in the fact that the author heavily relies on our own world, including names of the characters and places, food, clothing, architecture.

I'm afraid I don't have anything positive to say about the plot, which is very predictable, very "I've seen this all before". It's also repetitive, without any solutions or "wins" (unless you count characters gaining new powers just as they need them), and leading to an inevitable, seen-it-from-a-mile-away conclusion. There is too much foreshadowing for any twists to be actual twists, none of it is surprising.

On a positive note, I really appreciated a world where homophobia does not exist, and the fact that the majority of the main characters belong to the LGBTQ community.

This was pretty good in the entertaining sense, but there is really a lot of book here clocking in just under 600 pages. I found myself skipping through some of the romantic portions I found not really lending to the story as a whole. I think most readers will not like the many shifting POVs. There are, in my opinion, too many factions/houses which makes for one of those tricky balancing acts that can take away from the overall cohesiveness, while also being the authors main driving purpose for such a heavy read. The magic system was very neat and fun to read about, but probably the best selling feature for this book is the world building. It seemed evident that the author worked very hard to create this unique and intriguing world. All said I think I would have liked it more if it was a scaled down 350 page version with maybe more proposed books for the series, but hey what do I know.

This was my first Tara Sam book, and as I have heard a lot of other reviewers state, it seemed to lean more towards YA than adult fantasy. That is not necessarily a bad thing, especially since this author has been writing that genre for a long time.

The magic system and story was creative and exciting, but overall the book was a bit long for my taste, especially as it is the first in a whole series to come. That being said, I will still probably pick up the next books as it was enjoyable overall.

2.5 or 3 stars

After The Sealing that happened 500 years ago, the city of Nexus lost the favor of the Gods and has been isolated from the rest of the universe. The city is now dying, the near forests are withering and the lakes and oceans are receding and drying up. On top of it, a rebel group known as The Conjurers are doing dark magic and threatening the city, forcing the heirs of the four noble families to embark on a journey to save their city before it’s too late.

The four noble houses in Nexus are as follow:
House Mardova worships Deia and is the house of elementalists.
House Cyr worships Phos and is the house of lumins (light magic)
House Lastrider worships Nyx and controls shade and shadows
House Vakara worships Thana and has necromancy powers

I have mixed feelings about this book. There are some aspects that I enjoyed, like the darker atmosphere, the magic system, the social structure, and the world-building, but there are other aspects that fell a little short. The pace is not bad, and the plot is promising, but I can’t help but feel that not much happened for a 550 pages book. It takes a while for the story to really start moving, then it is well-paced, until it starts dragging on again. Overall it was a little underwhelming. The second half of the book is also quite repetitive, and I feel as if many sub-plots were just dropped after a few chapters or were not really relevant to the main story.

The main plot-line is about a series of mysterious magical events that happened because a group known as the Conjurers are doing dark magic illegally and the King needs to create a task force to investigate these events, find The Conjurers, and eliminate the threat. Honestly, though, I don’t understand why the King would choose 20 years old Nikolas who has never had a leadership role before and is not particularly good at investigating or fighting, as the leader of the task force. There is also the fact that this investigation leads nowhere. All they do is run around and investigate the scenes of the crimes, but they never really find anything relevant. The information we get about The Conjurers comes from their apparent leader who just happens to meet with some of the main characters and talks to them about his goals (and also invites them to join him and his group, just like that).

There is a political plot-line, since the Holy King is without an heir, and the noble houses would all like for their heir to be named as the Holy King’s heir. This book is a good mix of politics and mystery. As some of the main characters investigate The Conjurers, others are trying to find a way to undo The Sealing, while their parents are pushing them to be more powerful, more efficient, more likable, and more indispensable to the King and the city, all in the hopes of having someone from their House chosen as the heir to the Holy King.

All of the noble Houses’ heirs have secrets and their own personal agenda. This added a layer of scheming and lying as even those who were friends or romantically involved had to lie to each other and even betray each other. Sometimes to protect themselves, other times to follow their parents’ schemes. Their parents also played a big part in this dynamic full of mistrust and secrets as they are all hoping that their child will be chosen as the Holy King’s heir, thus giving them power and authority over the other houses.

This book has chapters from 7 different points of view, and while all the characters were different and had their own personality, I felt sometimes that they lacked a certain depth. It was also harder to get attached to the characters as we constantly jumped between them. The fact that we have so many POVs does help the plot move along (even though it is repetitive), and it gives us different perspectives on the politics and relationships, but at the same time, some characters were less interesting and duller and I didn’t enjoy their chapters as much.

Overall, there is not much character growth in this book. They are less ignorant by the end of the book, but their emotions and personality are much the same, and honestly, they acted like rash teenagers at times, even though it is said that they are all in their early 20s and have been raised and groomed to be the noble heir of their family.

Taesia Lastrider is the younger sister of the heir of their house, Dante. Where Dante is full of projects and ambitious ideas to help save the town, Taesia only wants to help, without all the politics involved. She does not have the ambition to become an heir, she only wants to be able to live and explore the world in peace. Her brother Dante dreams of finding a way to undo the Sealing, give back the power to the noble Houses, and get rid of the Holy King once and for all.

Risha is the heir of the Vakara family and is a powerful necromancer. She formed a friendship with Taesia, against their parents' wishes, many years ago, and honestly, there is not much to say besides that. Her parents are pushing for her to get married, but she does not seem to be too happy about it, yet she does nothing to get them to change their minds. She is not a bad character, but she was pretty bland and ordinary.

Angelica has been groomed by her mother since she was a child to become indispensable to the Holy King. There is a lot of pressure on her to be named the Holy King’s heir, especially since, according to her mother, she is not powerful enough. She needs to prove to her mother that she is worthy of the family name she bears and needs to become the heir to make her family proud.

Nikolas lives in the shadow of his dead brother. His brother is the one who was great at everything and made their father proud. As a result, his father has been hiding him, hoping to keep the truth about Nikolas’ weak powers hidden, but at the same time, jumping on any occasion to help the Holy King in order to gain his trust and have his son be named royal heir.

The world-building is well thought out, but not developed enough, and it still remains a usual and basic YA world-building. There are hints of Indian culture, mostly in the clothing some Houses wear, and also some titles that seemed to be Spanish, but it’s not really explained or developed. The words are just thrown into the story without much description.

On a side note, the 500 years gap between The Sealing and the present day is also not always consistent. One character mentioned her great-great-grandmother being alive before The Sealing, but nothing hints at the fact that these people can live longer than "regular" humans, so how is it possible? I also find it weird that they experience problems such as lack of resources due to The Sealing because they cannot really import from other realms anymore, only 500 years later. If the city was truly cut off from the rest of the world, I would expect the shortage to happen way sooner than 500 years later.

The City of Dusk has immediately taken its place on the shelf of my favourite books of all time. The premise is fascinating enough to get me to request it, but the actual content kept me hooked til the very end. There's lots of political intrigue and nobles vying for a throne with no heir, but my god there's so much more than that, it's so much deeper and bigger and literally encompasses the whole universe of the series. I know that people often avoid fantasy because it can get bogged down in world building and politics, but The City of Dusk balances delicately on giving the reader enough information to understand what is happening, the intricacies of the world, but without feeling like I'm turning the pages of a encyclopedia. It's definitely an easy book for those wary of the genre. It is a bit gorey, but I feel like there was enough softness and humanity to balance it out in a way that didn't make the gore feel perverse. It needs to be there, you know?

Now, the characters. There is a whole cast of them, and Tara has managed to make me care for every single one of them by the end of the book., which is a huge deal because I'm always bored with sad boys, even if they're sad for totally valid reasons. Now I would simply die for Nik and that's that! Also, the queerness of this story? Oh my god! We need more stories where queer people are out there, doing stuff, vying for political power and killing people. I was already aware of the queer element going into it, but each time a new detail was revealed I would squeal with delight and tell my partner. THIS is the media we deserve!

Needless to say, I'm obsessed with this dark and dying world, these mad and powerful gods and their godspawn, and the infinite possibility of what comes next. I will be rabidly recommending this to anyone and everyone I know, and eagerly awaiting the next installment of the series!

The City of Dusk by Tara Sim is an unputdownable start to an epic fantasy trilogy.

Four realms.
Four gods.
Four houses.
Four heirs.

Before the gods cut the realms off from each other, there was a natural flow of energy between them. Since the Sealing, the four realms are all slowly dying. In the City of Dusk, the four rival heirs devise a plan to restore balance to the realms.

Although the heirs are technically vying for the crown, they have formed a loose friendship of sorts over the years. Their quest to save their realm will constantly test their loyalty to each other and their families.

This book has it all: complex world-building, fully-fleshed characters, political intrigue, and an intriguing magic system. While it follows classic fantasy tropes, it is still an utterly compelling read. I could not read it fast enough, especially with frequent mini cliffhangers. It is a long and detailed book, but I never once felt bored while reading it.

It takes cultural inspiration from our world. There’s also some great queer representation.

There are many characters in this book. It took a bit to get a handle on them all. At first, I kept getting two characters mixed up, but their voices became clear soon enough. Taesia Lastrider has to be my favourite character. She will go to any length to seek revenge for wrongs done to her or family.

This book was so gripping right from the beginning. This first book takes place in one realm, but I can’t wait to see how big the world gets in the next instalment.

Thank you to Orbit Books for the finished copy to review!

https://booksandwheels.com

The City of Dusk was like the Cheesecake Factory menu — it’s long, it’s full of things that sound absolutely amazing, and pretty much everyone can find something that they want in there. But nothing is done particularly well because there are too many elements and not enough focus. And everything is covered in cheese.

Listen, this one was just not for me. I wanted to love it for the necromancy and other dark fantasy elements. I felt like there were too many characters, too many different magic systems, and, I never thought I’d say this, too much world-building. This isn’t a standalone, but it felt like the author was trying to make it one by throwing in EVERYTHING into this first book rather than really honing either the character development or the world-building. I was definitely taken aback when the book ended the way it did— I thought the conflict would be resolved but nah. The ending was fantastic! I wish that the rest of the book had maintained that same flow and energy.

This story is also being marketed as a dark adult fantasy, but I feel like the writing style and dialogue lean much more YA than adult. No shade— we all know that I love a good YA book. But just trying to temper people’s expectations because I was surprised.

Will I read the second one? Probably. I can’t help myself.