Review: Black City by Elizabeth Richards

Black City by Elizabeth Richards

Black City #1

Release Date: November 13^th, 2012

Number of Pages: 384

Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons BYR

Source: ARC form BEA
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A dark and tender post-apocalyptic love story set in the aftermath of a bloody war. In a city where humans and Darklings are now separated by a high wall and tensions between the two races still simmer after a terrible war, sixteen-year-olds Ash Fisher, a half-blood Darkling, and Natalie Buchanan, a human and the daughter of the Emissary, meet and do the unthinkable—they fall in love. Bonded by a mysterious connection that causes Ash’s long-dormant heart to beat, Ash and Natalie first deny and then struggle to fight their forbidden feelings for each other, knowing if they’re caught, they’ll be executed—but their feelings are too strong. When Ash and Natalie then find themselves at the center of a deadly conspiracy that threatens to pull the humans and Darklings back into war, they must make hard choices that could result in both their deaths.

I don’t even know where to start with this book. There are book that will simply hook you in from page one, and for me, this one was one of those. I mean, Black City was simply addicting and an amazing read. There were so many things in that book that I loved, and they really overshadowed anything that could have disappointed me. Don’t ask me about the bad side of this book, because if there were any, I totally missed them.

The novel is dark, and I personally found many aspects to remind me of Nazi Germany (aspects! Don’t throw rocks at me, please), and being to history geek that I am, it really made me get lost in the story in a different way that I would have if I hadn’t made those connections. I liked how well to world was created to me, and I really found interesting how the characters perceptive of that said world felt right to me (and not as in THIS IS HOW I WOULD HAVE TOTALLY REACTED. It was more this is what I would expect form someone like her to react, from her position in society vs. Ash’s one.)

There is a romance, that’s for sure, but it fell into the background for me. The world was really what got me hooked. Yes, there is some kind of vampires (here called Darklings), but that aspect of the characters wasn’t what was the most important for the story to work out. I felt like it was more about them being a minority than some dark creatures.

When it comes down to the characters, I don’t have to say that there is a love that may start a little too fast, but there were so many other things that made me root for Ash and Natalie. Maybe it’s that we can’t stop rooting for what seems like impossible love? Maybe it’s because they both teach one and another, since they don’t know as much as they think they do about the other’s kind.

Overall, Black City kept me awake for hours, unable to put it down until I had read every words of the story. It was an addicting dystopian novel that will leave you hanging for more. Phoenix is already at the top of my To-Be-Read list for 2013. June can’t come soon enough.

About The Author

From the author's website

Elizabeth Richards is an award-winning journalist, who spent her early career reviewing videogames before making the bold (or crazy) move into travel writing, despite suffering from terrible travel sickness.
In her spare time, she ran a successful lifestyle website aimed at teenage girls, where she got to interview many of her favourite bands, go to gigs and basically blag loads of free swag all in the name of ‘research’.
Elizabeth lives in Buckinghamshire, England, with her husband. Black City is her debut novel.

Find her on Twitter: @theredpenofdoom