THE CITY OF DUSK by Tara Sim – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The City of Dusk by Tara Sim
Series: The Dark Gods #1
Published by Orbit on March 22 2022
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Pages: 512
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: Interesting worldbuilding clashes with an overstuffed plot and slow pacing, making The City of Dusk a mixed bag.

It took me almost a month to finish The City of Dusk, and I almost called it quits several times, but I finally decided to finish it out of sheer determination. As you can see from my rating, this was a mixed bag for me. I thought the world-building was fascinating and detailed, and there were a few characters I ended up really loving, but the pacing was so slow and the page count was so high that it really was a struggle to get through.

Rather than do a detailed story recap (you can click on the Goodreads link for that), here’s the short version of the plot. The world of Nexus consists of four noble houses, each with its own god and powers, and the story revolves around the heirs to these houses. We follow Angelica from House Mardova, with the power to control and use the elements; Nikolas from House Cyr, who has the power to wield light; Dante, Taesia and Brailee from House Lastrider, who use shadows as weapons, and finally, Risha form House Vakara, where necromancy is used to control the dead. Of course, in addition there are siblings and parents and a multitude of side characters, so you can see the cast is huge.

When the story opens, an event called Godsnight is fast approaching, a night that gives the heirs the opportunity to open the Sealed portal into the realm called Vitae. But unsealing the portal is extremely dangerous—-not to mention illegal—and the heirs are being closely watched, as only one is destined to gain favor with the King.

Let’s start with what worked for me. Despite how intricate (and confusing) the worldbuilding was, I found it fascinating. Sim takes her time to explore her world and brings it to life through many small details. I loved the different powers the heirs used, like Angelica’s ability to control the elements by playing her violin or piccolo, or Taesia’s familiar, a shadow that lives in her bracelet and comes out whenever she needs it. Risha was interesting as well, as she can raise the dead for specific purposes and communicate with spirits. Nikolas has the ability of lightspeed, which means he can move from place to place really fast, so he’s almost like a superhero. I also liked the idea of spirits being trapped and unable to move on to the next realm. This made for some interesting scenarios and gave the characters some real challenges.

For such a big cast of characters, Sim did a pretty good job of fleshing them out, at least the main characters. But two in particular ended up being my favorites: Taesia and Julian, one of the “side” characters who turns out to have a much bigger role to play. Julian is a Hunter and is tasked with controlling beasts who find their way into Nexus. He has the ability to read their thoughts, and there is a cool mystery surrounding that ability. He and Taesia end up working together, and I absolutely loved their dynamic. Also it didn’t hurt that there is a brewing sexual tension between the two! As for Taesia, she was by far the most interesting of the heirs. She does the opposite of what everyone tells her to do, and I loved her for that. I found myself racing through the chapters where Julian and Taesia are together, but stalling out whenever the focus drifted away from them.

But for me, the book’s downfall was its length, which contributed to a host of problems. There was simply too much. Too many characters, too many separate story lines, too much worldbuilding. Had the author chosen to focus on a few key plot points, it would have been easier to keep everything straight. As it was, I found it difficult to follow the many different events going on at the same time. We leap back and forth among the five main characters, each who have their own agenda and story arc. I found it hard to switch gears at the end of each chapter and pick up the thread of the next one, and this became tedious very quickly.

Adding to my struggle was the pacing, which is very slow. We get occasional bursts of action, especially at the end, but in between those sections the pace lagged quite a bit. It was even more frustrating because I could see the overall heart of the story and it really is pretty cool! It just took so much effort to get there, that I lost patience and steam.

The jury is still out on whether or not I’ll continue the series. The story ends on a cliffhanger, and to be honest it was a very exciting ending. But at this point the negatives outweigh the positives, so I’ll have to judge my mood when the time comes.

With thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.