The City of Dusk by Tara Sim – Review

Published: March 22, 2022

Publisher: Orbit Books

Series: The Dark Gods #1

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 576 (Paperback)

My Rating: 4.0/5.0

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
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But the gods have withdrawn their favor from the once vibrant and thriving city.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.

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.

---

You ever miss the angsty goth-ness of the Six of Crows duology but would rather your characters be a bunch of disaffected rich kids meddling in the occult? Well boy, have I got the book for you! City of Dusk features the four heirs of the four gods – Life, Death, Light, and Darkness – as our main characters. They have been subtly competing with one another (some more so than others) for the favor of the king, so one might be named his heir as well and take the throne upon his passing. This would be dandy, except the gods shut off their realm, Vitae, from the other four realms and it is dying. 

This is where Dante Lastrider comes in. He’s a shade, heir to Nyx the god of Darkness, and he’s been researching illegal conjuration magic in an effort to break the seal to his god’s realm and regain the necessary trade and power that would come along with that. He plans to garner the support of the other heirs so that on Godsnight, when their powers are at their fullest and the barriers are the weakest, they can perform a ritual which would break the seals and thus save Vitae. Before this happens, he’s accused of the murder of Prelate Lazzaro who was providing him with research and an illegal grimoire, and is imprisoned leaving his sister Taesia to take over his plan. 

Taesia never planned to be heir, but rather her brother Dante’s right hand so she lacks some of the subtlety that he had. She’s reckless but determined to save her brother, even if it means continuing the research that ended with him thrown in prison and sentenced to hang. This brings her in contact with Julian, a man who can hear the thoughts of beasts who is currently working for Nikolas, heir of Phos. Julian is merely a common man charged with taking down dangerous beasts, but he fears his ability makes him a monster as well. Nikolas and Angelica were somewhat shallow characters in comparison to Taesia and Risha the necromancer. Risha struggles to find a balance between the duty to her family and finding a way to open the gates so the dead may pass across, even if the methods might be less than legal.

I found City of Dusk to be an enjoyable, entertaining read after I was able to really get into it, which honestly took about a hundred pages. There are so many characters and various bits of plot slowly weaving together that it did take awhile for me to feel immersed, but once I hit that crucial point I didn’t want to put it down! The story was quite intense and full of excellent magical action sequences, secrets being uncovered, and a few great plot twists. Some reviewers seem to think the writing leans a bit more YA, but I don’t quite agree with that. I think it definitely skews adult, but could easily be enjoyed by a YA audience if they don’t mind some darker content. I’m looking forward to picking up the next installment to see how the effects of the culminating events of The City of Dusk play out!