FORMAT/INFO: Red City will be published by Tor Books on October 14th, 2025. It is 432 pages long and available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: In Angel City, there are two forces of power: the Lumines and Grand Central. These two secret factions are rival groups of alchemists, magic users with the ability to transmute elements. But their crowning achievement is sand, a drug that enhances the best - and worst - aspects of any person who takes it. With everyone from politicians to pop stars clamoring for the underground drug, control of the sand trade is vital. As the Lumines and Grand Central draw closer to outright war, two childhood friends find themselves on opposite sides of the battle line. Will their own personal needs for power and control outweigh the love they have for each other?
Red City is a gripping tale of two people caught up in a tangled web of conflicting loyalties as feuding magical cabals get ready to wage war. This isn't Romeo and Juliet; that's a love story of two relative innocents trying to escape the conflict around them. Ari and Sam are far from innocent. They each commit dark deeds and are fully complicit in the violence breaking out in the city, all while trying to reconcile their complicated feelings for each other.
The author does a fantastic job of building up Sam and Ari's relationship in the first third of the book. We spend quite a bit of time seeing their quiet solidarity with each other before life's pressures drive them apart. While the way they join their respective alchemical faction differs, their reasons for doing so are similar: they are isolated, lonely children who find themselves at far too young an age weighted down with the responsibility of protecting their respective families. Power begins as a means to create safety; only far too late do Ari and Sam realize the cost that comes with that power.
Because the alchemy factions keep secrets on pain of death, Ari and Sam don't realize they are caught up in the same conflict until the story jumps forward several years, when tensions between Angel City's top two factions are about to erupt into a full scale war. By that point, they've both become critical members of their factions and believe they should do basically anything to protect their faction and its interests.
For those who love to revel in soapy, toxic relationships, this book will be absolute catnip. Ari and Sam are children when they become caught up in extremely manipulative relationships that will mold them into adulthood. That means that when sex enters the scene, while it is always between two consenting adults, it is by no means part of a relationship that is in any way healthy. (And yes, there are explicit scenes in the book.)
Don't come to this story looking for a sweeping romantic tale. This is full of dark actions and morally compromised characters. Practically every relationship in RED CITY is jagged or broken in some way, but characters care for each other despite that. Unfortunately, each character has too many conflicting loyalties for a juggling act to be possible, leading to inevitable heartbreak.I did like that the author sometimes gave the audience a peek into other characters' lives that the two main characters are never privy to; the protagonists don't magically get to learn everyone's motivations by the end of the story. It creates the tragedy of knowing the real reasons some side characters make the choices they do, reasons our protagonists will never know.
To top it all off is the fantastic magic system that relies on manipulating the very atoms that make up everything. Alchemy is as much science as magic; alchemists have to know the atomic structures they are working with, how to transmute something from one element to another in a balanced way that doesn't cause an explosion or some other unstable reaction. But for those who master it, your imagination is the limit. It means that fight scenes are full of people pulling knives from brick walls or conjuring a shield from air molecules. It's fast-paced and fluid and cinematic and I loved it.
The only quibble I had with this book is sometimes I found the prose a little too overdone. There were certain scenes that were flowery enough that I found it took me out of the story instead of pulling me further in. Thankfully, the characters are engaging enough that
Red City is here to be your next dark fantasy soap opera read. It's the kind of novel where characters are morally grey at best, where everyone has done something truly evil at least once. If you need joy in your next read, this is not for you. If you're looking for complicated relationships that are heading towards heartbreak fast, this needs to be on the top of your TBR.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: In Angel City, there are two forces of power: the Lumines and Grand Central. These two secret factions are rival groups of alchemists, magic users with the ability to transmute elements. But their crowning achievement is sand, a drug that enhances the best - and worst - aspects of any person who takes it. With everyone from politicians to pop stars clamoring for the underground drug, control of the sand trade is vital. As the Lumines and Grand Central draw closer to outright war, two childhood friends find themselves on opposite sides of the battle line. Will their own personal needs for power and control outweigh the love they have for each other?
Red City is a gripping tale of two people caught up in a tangled web of conflicting loyalties as feuding magical cabals get ready to wage war. This isn't Romeo and Juliet; that's a love story of two relative innocents trying to escape the conflict around them. Ari and Sam are far from innocent. They each commit dark deeds and are fully complicit in the violence breaking out in the city, all while trying to reconcile their complicated feelings for each other.
The author does a fantastic job of building up Sam and Ari's relationship in the first third of the book. We spend quite a bit of time seeing their quiet solidarity with each other before life's pressures drive them apart. While the way they join their respective alchemical faction differs, their reasons for doing so are similar: they are isolated, lonely children who find themselves at far too young an age weighted down with the responsibility of protecting their respective families. Power begins as a means to create safety; only far too late do Ari and Sam realize the cost that comes with that power.
Because the alchemy factions keep secrets on pain of death, Ari and Sam don't realize they are caught up in the same conflict until the story jumps forward several years, when tensions between Angel City's top two factions are about to erupt into a full scale war. By that point, they've both become critical members of their factions and believe they should do basically anything to protect their faction and its interests.
For those who love to revel in soapy, toxic relationships, this book will be absolute catnip. Ari and Sam are children when they become caught up in extremely manipulative relationships that will mold them into adulthood. That means that when sex enters the scene, while it is always between two consenting adults, it is by no means part of a relationship that is in any way healthy. (And yes, there are explicit scenes in the book.)
Don't come to this story looking for a sweeping romantic tale. This is full of dark actions and morally compromised characters. Practically every relationship in RED CITY is jagged or broken in some way, but characters care for each other despite that. Unfortunately, each character has too many conflicting loyalties for a juggling act to be possible, leading to inevitable heartbreak.I did like that the author sometimes gave the audience a peek into other characters' lives that the two main characters are never privy to; the protagonists don't magically get to learn everyone's motivations by the end of the story. It creates the tragedy of knowing the real reasons some side characters make the choices they do, reasons our protagonists will never know.
To top it all off is the fantastic magic system that relies on manipulating the very atoms that make up everything. Alchemy is as much science as magic; alchemists have to know the atomic structures they are working with, how to transmute something from one element to another in a balanced way that doesn't cause an explosion or some other unstable reaction. But for those who master it, your imagination is the limit. It means that fight scenes are full of people pulling knives from brick walls or conjuring a shield from air molecules. It's fast-paced and fluid and cinematic and I loved it.
The only quibble I had with this book is sometimes I found the prose a little too overdone. There were certain scenes that were flowery enough that I found it took me out of the story instead of pulling me further in. Thankfully, the characters are engaging enough that
Red City is here to be your next dark fantasy soap opera read. It's the kind of novel where characters are morally grey at best, where everyone has done something truly evil at least once. If you need joy in your next read, this is not for you. If you're looking for complicated relationships that are heading towards heartbreak fast, this needs to be on the top of your TBR.
3:00 AM | 
Posted by
Caitlin G. |
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