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Review: The Secret City

by C J Daugherty

The Secret City

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Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for a chance to read this excerpt in exchange for an honest review!
Published: 1st of September 2016

Title: The Secret City
Author: C J Daugherty & Carina Rozenfeld
Publishd By: Atom
Book: #2 The Alchemists Chronicles
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Found: Netgalley
Rating: 4 Voodoos

‘Remember: Demons lie’

Locked away inside the fortified walls of Oxford’s St Wilfred’s College, surrounded by alchemists sworn to protect them, Taylor and Sacha are safe from the Darkness. For now.

But time is short. In seven days Sacha will turn 18, and the ancient curse that once made him invincible will kill him, unleashing unimaginable demonic horror upon the world.

There is one way to stop it.

Taylor and Sacha must go to where the curse was first cast – the medieval French city of Carcassonne – and face the demons.

The journey will be dangerous. And monsters are waiting for them.

But as Darkness descends on Oxford, their choice is stark. They must face everything that scares them, or lose everything they love.

- Goodreads

What an exciting, fast paced sequel! I read The Secret Fire last year and enjoyed it, but I’ll be honest, I couldn’t remember a lot of what happened when I finally got round to reading this book. It didn’t matter though. The Secret City re-introduced me to the characters and the events of The Secret Fire but in a way that was entertaining and light. I was able to catch up pretty quickly and thanks to the writing style found myself quickly re-immersed in this story of Dark Magic verses Alchemy.

The Secret City continues on from The Secret Fire. The day that Sacha is going to die is fast approaching and Taylor and the other Alchemists at Oxford’s St Wilfred’s College have yet to find a solution that will break the curse and prevent a Demon from escaping Hell and destroying the world. Taylor is trying to harness her powers in the hopes that she will be strong enough (when they find what they are looking for) but they are fast running out of time and everything is looking hopeless. That is, until a stranger appears at the gates of St Wilfred’s, and attacks! Now the pressures really on and they may have just discovered what they need, but it’s going to be risky. Is Taylor willing to sacrifice everything to help save Sacha? Everything including her soul?

Taylor and Sacha were so cute together. Taylor is the typical sweet girl who underestimates herself, but really, she is strong, she just has to believe in herself. With Sacha’s help she starts to realise her full potential. Sacha is kind and supportive and not just because he realises he needs Taylor to survive. He is genuinely a nice guy and that really makes you will them on. You don’t want him to die either. I really enjoyed the secondary romance in this book. We got to know Louisa quite well in The Secret Fire and she was kind of an arsehole but we understood why. Now, we get to see her slowly open up and let people in, and that was awesome.

The story is told from multiple points of view, Taylor’s, Sacha’s and Louisa’s. It got a bit confusing sometimes. I would have liked to have seen each chapter labelled as who’s POV I was in, as it switched so quickly. I liked the changing POV though, it kept you informed and kept everything moving. It added suspense when things got intense, and boy did they get intense! We had Dark Magicians, Zombie creatures and a dark and terrifying Demon! What more could we ask for?!

The Secret City had a great ending with not to many loose ends but just enough to allow us to get excited about what could happen next in this series.
All in all, the perfect sequel.

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One comment on “Review: The Secret City

  1. Anne@HeadfullofBooks

    Glad to know you liked the sequel even though you couldn’t remember much of the first book. That always happens to me and then I don’t want to read the next book because I think I’ll be confused.