My second read of the year was City of Gods and Monsters by Kayla Edwards, the first book in the House of Devils series. I’ve seen this series around for years and needed something that was in the Audible plus library because I was out of credits, so I thought I’d give this a go.
Summary attempt
Loren is a human in a city that caters to it’s supernatural residents. When her friend is abducted in her place the police don’t believe that she could have been the intended target, nor that she saw the a Phoenix symbol tattoed on their necks – something no Hellslayer gang in the city is known to have.
When the contract to locate someone for 3 million comes up, it’s too good for Darien to pass up… until he discovers that the target is just a human girl with an innocent aura, who is also being tracked by a mysterious unknown Hellslayer gang. In a move that surprises everyone, including Loren, he chooses to protect her and investigate why she is being targeted.
As more girls go missing and as strange demons who can breach magically protected zones are appearing, it seems everyone in city has been contracted to track Loren. They un-earth a tangled web of conspiracies as they investigate this Phoenix symbol and why this group is tracking Loren. Seemingly linked to an exstinct society that invented a new kind of magic that could give humans extra powers, which is mysteriously linked to the family Loren cannot recall and somehow means that everyone thinks she’s the only person that can activate this magic.
The more they investigate the more tangled the web becomes, and the more tangled her and Darien become.
My review
This book felt like something from the 2010’s and not necessarily in a good way. The world is interesting but it takes a long while to fully get from the narrative how everything works. I found the main character frustrating, even though I know her journey in this book is supposed to be her becoming tougher, I did find her quite irritating. Plus the number of ‘misunderstandings’ for dramatic affect were annoying. The pace is quite slow too but since it’s setting up for a 5 part series, there was a lot to establish. It also has that classic thing of the MC being mysteriously ‘special’, despite not having much personality besides being a little sassy to scary men sometimes.
All that being said, I did enjoy the story and I do kind of want to know where it is going? I don’t think I want to use credits on it however, I might read more if they are on KU.
Antonia Bernardin 