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The City of Dusk

The Dark Gods, Book 1

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The City of Dusk

By: Tara Sim
Narrated by: Nikki Patel
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About this listen

 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But the gods have withdrawn their favour from the once vibrant and thriving city.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.

(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited©2022 Tara Sim Dark Fantasy Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Heartfelt

Critic reviews

Tara Sim's adult debut is a glorious tapestry of magic and murderous gods and a perfect entry for anyone looking for a new series starter
City of Dusk is deceptive; it starts off relatively fluffy and ends elbows-deep in blood... if you're expecting a neat package that gets tied up in a confrontation with one clearly defined Big Bad at the end, you're in for a surprise
Fantasy readers will appreciate Sim's attempt to create an expansive world in the vein of A Darker Shade of Magic or Gideon the Ninth....There's a lot to love here
For Sim's most devoted fans
Lovers of epic, dark fantasies, rejoice! There's literally a lot here to love at 512 pages, including immersive writing that excellently builds this magical world, badass queer characters, and an interesting plot. Fans of A Darker Shade of Magic and All of Us Villains will want to pick this up sooner rather than later
Through its generous number of perspectives and gorgeous prose, Tara Sim proves herself again to be a talented worldbuilder and detailed storyteller
A delightful, complex, intimate yet explosive debut adult fantasy novel
Recommended for fans of large scale fantasy sagas with diverse, frequently queer protagonists
A good fantasy, with a cracking ensemble cast and a wonderful world
All stars
Most relevant
I started reading the book before getting the audiobook, and honestly Nikki Patel does an amazing job of reading. She brings the characters to life

Amazing narrator

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Very slow to get going but I am glad I stayed with it. I will listen to the next book in the series.

So many main characters and a little confusing to start with.

Slow to get going but a great finish.

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I have to admit, I did struggle to get into this story at first, and I wondered if it would be for me. I'm glad I stuck with it though as by the third chapter I was listening to it every night, not wanting to stop at the end of the chapter to go to sleep.
I enjoyed the development of the characters, the highs and the lows, seeing how they coped with having their views challenged and changed.
I did find the pacing of the narration a bit rushed at times though, and found it difficult to work out when there were "scene changes" which threw me off a bit, though I came to expect it about half way through the book so didn't jar me quite so much.

Am looking forward to the next book!

Interesting story that comes together well

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I really enjoyed the overall story and although I liked some of the viewpoint characters more than others, even the ones I wasn't too keen on grew on me by the end.
I definitely thought the characters and the relationships between them were the strong point of this, and the diffrent family dynamics happening throughout really drew me in.
Risha and Nic were definitely my favorites throughout and Dante and Julian had their moments too.
There were some points of the worldbuilding and timeline which confused me near the beginning, such as the way the characters talk about the sealing and other realms. It's supposed to be 500 years since a big event, but the way it's talked about sometimes makes it sound much more recent which threw me off.
The one major thing which got to me was the way it switched between characters. One sentence we'd be in one characters point of view and the next in another without any clear break between them. This definitely made me enjoy it a little less as I had to think about it to work out what had happened and reorientate from whose point of view things were happening from. I don't know if the book was written that way - which I really hope not - or if its a performance/ editing thing. It is making me consider if I get the sequel as an audioboook or just find the physical books because I did find it frustrating to listen to when it did this. Luckily it only seemed to be a thing I noticed more near the end.
Otherwise it was great and I'm really enjoying a lot of books written by Tara Sim. I will be getting the sequel in one way or another.

Worth a listen

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