The City of Dusk – Review

Hi everyone! I’ve got yet another review to share today! I’ve been spending the majority of my free time playing Elden Ring instead of reading or working on blog posts, so I don’t have many other posts set up yet. I did however, manage to finish my ARC copy of The City of Dusk by Tara Sim and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised!

The City of Dusk
by Tara Sim
Series: The Dark Gods #1
Release date: March 29th 2021

Genre: Adult, Fantasy
Rating: ★★★★☆.5

Set in a gorgeous world of bone and shadow magic, of vengeful gods and defiant chosen ones, The City of Dusk is the first in a dark epic fantasy trilogy that follows the four heirs of four noble houses—each gifted with a divine power—as they form a tenuous alliance to keep their kingdom from descending into a realm-shattering war.

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But the gods have withdrawn their favor from the once vibrant and thriving city.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

Unwilling to stand by and watch the destruction, the four heirs—Risha, a necromancer struggling to keep the peace; Angelica, an elementalist with her eyes set on the throne; Taesia, a shadow-wielding rogue with rebellion in her heart; and Nik, a soldier who struggles to see the light— will sacrifice everything to save the city.

But their defiance will cost them dearly.

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This is my first book from this author, and I was really surprised with how much I enjoyed it! There are a ton of trigger warnings for this book though, including blood, gore, murder, grief, self harm, parental abuse, and probably a few that I’m forgetting about.

This is a fairly long book, coming it at 512 pages. However, it didn’t feel like a long book because the writing was great, the setting was immersive and the characters were all really interesting. It’s definitely character focused, and we get multiple POV’s including the four main POVs: Taesia (my favorite), Risha, Angelica, and Nik. We also get a few side character POVs including Julian (also a favorite), Dante, and we also get the POV of someone unknown as well. All of the characters are also queer!

I adored Taesia the most, she has shadow magic which is one of my favorite types to read about. She’s also very headstrong and chaotic, and extremely sarcastic. She has good intentions, but sometimes takes things a bit too far and ends up leaning into the stereotypical idea that shadow magic is bad, which I highly enjoyed. I also really liked Julian who was a side character that can talk to animals, and I definitely ship him with Taesia, although it remains to be seen if it’ll actually happen.

I loved the world and the magic too, although at times I was a little confused and lost when it came to the world itself and what it looked like, but that may be mostly because I was reading an ARC copy that didn’t have a map, which I think will be helpful to know what these other places mentioned are. The idea of four realms that are ruled by four gods was interesting, and I liked how people could at one point travel between the realms. In the timeline in the book, the realms have all been closed off and the city where all the realms converged is now dying.

The plot was interesting as well, with the four houses vying for the King’s favor so that one of them will be chosen as his successor, but then conjurers start causing problems that poses a threat to the safety of the kingdom. The four heirs must come together to stop the plot and save their Realm, but of course because their houses don’t trust one another it make it really hard for them to work together.

The final 25% of the book was so incredibly fast paced and was action packed! So much happened in such a short period of time that I felt like I was holding my breath while I was reading so I wouldn’t miss anything!

I’ve found that since I finished this book, I still think about the characters and the ending, and I can’t wait for the next book to come out so that I can finally find out what happens next!

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Do you plan on reading The City of Dusk? I’d love to chat!