City of Lights by Keri Arthur

Posted January 7, 2016 by Karen in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

City of Lights by Keri ArthurCity of Light by Keri Arthur
Also by this author: Winter Halo
Series: An Outcast Novel
Published by Penguin on January 5th 2016
Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, General, Paranormal, Dystopian
Pages: 400
ISBN: 9780698185371
Goodreads
four-stars
four-flames

The first in an all-new futuristic fantasy series from Keri Arthur—the New York Times bestselling author of the Souls of Fire novels.   When the bombs that stopped the species war tore holes in the veil between this world and the next, they allowed entry to the Others—demons, wraiths, and death spirits who turned the shadows into their hunting grounds. Now, a hundred years later, humans and shifters alike live in artificially lit cities designed to keep the darkness at bay....   As a déchet—a breed of humanoid super-soldiers almost eradicated by the war—Tiger has spent her life in hiding. But when she risks her life to save a little girl on the outskirts of Central City, she discovers that the child is one of many abducted in broad daylight by a wraith-like being—an impossibility with dangerous implications for everyone on earth.   Because if the light is no longer enough to protect them, nowhere is safe...

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Review by Karen of City of Lights

Let me tell you about an urban fantasy author you really should be reading. Her name is Keri Arthur and I have been reading her for a number of years, but this is my first review of one of her books.  I discovered Arthur’s Riley Jenson Guardian series long before I ever reviewed books or blogged.  Arthur is unique in that her female characters are not sexually repressed, and are at home with their own sexuality and sexual nature.  I know in urban fantasy, especially those who are looking for romance, this might put off some readers, as some readers believe that as soon as the girl meets the dude that all other relationships are off limits to said heroine.  Arthur’s female characters never fall into instant love or even instant attraction, every relationship is build on a solid, and sometimes turbulent foundation.  I am usually a one woman, and one love type of gal, but I go along with Arthur’s books because the rides are always so very good.  Arthur’s heroines don’t always line up the way I would like them to, but it does make for a thrilling adventure, as the relationships her female characters build are solid ones. You know what you are going to find with an Arthur female protagonist.  Let me break it down for you in simple terms NO BULLSHIT.

Arthur writes real ugly emotions into her characters and in City of Lights: An Outcast Novel, I got a front row seat to one of Arthur’s best characters that she has written.  Her newest book is fronted in the first person narrative by Tiger, a genetically engineered super soldiers.  Tiger is the last of her kind, and her story is gut wrenching.  She lives in a world the used and reviled the very beings they created. They were treated as disposable beings, despite them being able to bleed, sacrifice, and fight for their creators.

Genetically created super soldier made to fight in a war waged over a century ago. Tiger is the female protagonist last of her kind living in flesh. She is surrounded by the ‘children’ of the dead like herself. Her kind the dèchat were cannon fodder in the war, disposable being that were never really trusted by their human makers, as they were made from the genetic material of the enemy.  This is the simplified set up for Arthur’s City of Lights new series urban fantasy science fiction series. As I mentioned before I have been an avid reader of Arthur’s works since Riley Jensen Guardian Series, as she writes very strong female characters; which is one of my must haves when reading an action adventure book.  Modern man in our real age has concurred the dark. My father used to tell a story from his youth when electricity came to the rural communities around Steuben county, New York. As late as the nineteen thirties and forties places in the United States were without electricity. Man has an primordial fear of the dark and the beasties that exist just outside the light. In Arthur’s world the beasties are real and man once again is very afraid of what lives in the dark, because the beasties are real and deadly.  Arthur does a bang up job in building her world and from the very beginning she makes readers aware as to why humans are once more fearful of what goes bump in the night. A race war had ravaged both humans and shifters and the solution the shifters used tore a rifts in the world letting ‘Others’ in.  Whoopsie! So now both humans and shifters band together, in fear of the ‘Others’, the world now lives by the old adage ‘the enemy of my enemy is now my friend.’  Wonder if a bigger bad came down on real earth, if this would work, I do have my doubts, as even in Arthur’s book not everyone is a forgive and forget person, despite the war being over a century.  The action adventure revolves around Tiger rescuing a young girl and the ramifications of the girl and her protector being thrust into her life.  As I said before the wars ramifications are far reaching and Tiger’s past is ever present in her present, and her having a future hangs by a thread.

There are sexual exploits in this book, if you want some sex with you urban fantasy science fiction.  The sex scene could have been omitted for me as I felt no connection between the two characters during them.  It was not that the three scenes were not written well, but it was more a scratch an itch type sex interlude, instead of any real physical or emotional connection.

I understood why her newest character Tiger would go to the length she does to rescue a child, because of they way that Arthur writes Tiger.  I was immersed into Tiger’s life and her survival from the first pages of this book.  The way Arthur deals with the paranormal elements is unique, and at times twisted my heart at the devastating effects war had on the people of the City of Lights.  The world has been literally torn apart and those rips have devastating effects on the world that Tiger inhabits.  This is one book that truly needs to be read by any urban fantasy lover, as the characters are multi dimensional and the world building has so much rich texture, that it is a ‘not to be missed’ read.

The book ended in what some might see as a cliffhanger but with this being the start of a new series, it felt more like Tiger going home to lick her wounds more than a cliffhanger.  The most poignant emotional relationships are those that Tiger has with her ‘ghost’ little ones, her relationships with the living are not as compelling; as Tiger only truly trust her little ones.

four-stars

About Keri Arthur

Keri Arthur, author of the New York Times bestselling Riley Jenson, Guardian series, has now written more than 25 books. She’s received several nominations in the Best Contemporary Paranormal category of the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Awards, and recently won RT’s Career Achievement Award for urban fantasy. She lives in Melbourne with her daughter and two crazy dogs

Rating Report
Plot
four-stars
Characters
four-half-stars
Writing
four-stars
Pacing
four-stars
Cover
four-stars
Overall: four-stars

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