by Pippa DaCosta

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for a chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Published: May 7th 2015

“Look, but don’t touch.
Touch, but don’t feel.
Feel, but never ever love.“

This is my A Book That Takes Place in My Hometown choice for the 2015 Reading Challenge.

(It’s based in London which isn’t Colchester Essex but it’s pretty impossible to find a book set in Colchester… and this book does mention Leytonstone which is where my husband grew up and where his family still lives… so I think it’s ok to count it)

Title: City of Fae
Author: Pippa DaCosta
Published by: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ)
Book: Standalone (currently)
Genre: YA Fantasy
Found: Netgalley
Rating: 2 Voodoos

From the moment Alina touches London’s hottest fae superstar, breaking one of the laws founded to protect all of her kind, her fate – and the fae – close in.

Below ground, the fae High Queen plots to claim the city as her own and places her pawns, ready for the battle to come. A battle she cannot lose, but for one small problem – Alina. There are four ancient keepers powerful enough to keep the queen in her prison. Three are dead. One remains … And to fight back, Alina risks sacrificing everything she has come to love.

This New Adult urban fantasy is packed with action and suspense and will have you yearning for more forbidden fae romance.

-Netgalley

I’m not quite sure how I feel about City of Fae. I was a little irritated that it was classed as a new adult as it had hardly anything that a Young Adult Novel couldn’t have. And I enjoyed most of the storyline and parts of the romance, but something about the pace put me off. It seemed slow in places and I kept finding myself getting really bored.

I was really excited at the beginning to find that it was set in London! And for most of the book the setting is well described and gives a nice gritty and grey backdrop to the story. I also loved that Pippa DaCosta tried to set up the history of the Fae. Where they came from, how they came to be here, what they were, many of the things I wanted answered, were answered. However sometimes this information came in big clumps that seemed a little heavy and really slowed the book down.

Alina was a good main character, she was vulnerable but also determined. Alina was a recently fired, reporter. She was upset about losing her job but saw an opportunity to regain it when she stumbles across Reign, a Fae Superstar Musician with a reputation, battered and bruised on the floor at the tube station. She offers her help but breaks the rule of no contact with Fae! A Fae feeds off your essence but in doing so they be-spell you, making you addicted to them. (Basically you become a Fae junkie willing to do anything they say because you believe you love them).

Alina spends most of the book fighting her growing attachment to Reign. This concept left me a little dulled to the growing romance because it made it feel like it was fake. Especially when we met Shay and Andrew their other love interests. Towards the end it did begin to become more believable though.

I enjoyed the Queen’s plot to escape. The Queen was dark and creepy and her spider minions, that she could control, were really scary. I hate spiders and the thought of waking up to my walls undulating because of the huge number of spiders crawling across them makes me quiver with fear. UUUgghhh! Horrid things! Anyway we find out that Alina is a key element of the Queen’s escape plan and I thought it was a great twist. I didn’t see it coming at all! And the ending was great. So dark and full of chaos.

Reign was the typical Fae, gorgeous and cryptic. I enjoyed the parts where you started to understand a little more about why he’s distant and confusing. I just wish there had been more! There was so much confusion with who Alina was, and why she was important to the Queen that it didn’t leave much time for Reign’s character to develop.

I guess all in all, I just wish that it had been a little more focused, either on the romance or on the mystery and the action. It just felt jumbled to me and I felt unsatisfied when I finished. There were so many aspects that would have made this an amazing novel but as it is I’ve already forgotten most of what happened.