Phoenix by Elizabeth Richards (Black City)

Phoenix: A Black City Novel, by Elizabeth Richards

      Weeks after his crucifixion and rebirth as Phoenix, Ash Fisher believes his troubles are far behind him. He and Natalie are engaged and life seems good. But his happiness is short-lived when he receives a threatening visit from Purian Rose, who gives Ash an ultimatum: vote in favor of Rose’s Law permanently relegating Darklings to the wrong side of the wall or Natalie will be killed.

      The decision seems obvious to Ash; he must save Natalie. But when Ash learns about The Tenth, a new and deadly concentration camp where the Darklings would be sent, the choice doesn’t seem so simple. Unable to ignore his conscience, Ash votes against Rose’s Law, signing Natalie’s death warrant and putting a troubled nation back into the throes of bloody battle. 

      I loved the first installment in this series for a lot of different reasons. I liked the relatable characters, the interesting mix of politics, racism/species-ism, supernatural happenings, and forbidden love, and the always exciting twists and turns the story was making.

     Not that Phoenix didn't have all of that, but it wasn't "up there" with the first book, not by a long shot. 

     It starts off really exciting, with everyone wondering whether or not the vote for Rose's Law (which we find out later will totally screw over all the Darklings by sending them to a worse concentration camp than when they were warring). Then the anty gets upped when Purian Rose himself threatens to hurt Natalie, who is newly engaged to our hero, Ash Fisher, half-Darkling and rebellion symbol/leader, Black Phoenix, if he doesn't vote to support Rose's Law, which obvi he can't do! Then there's a crazy turn, and basically Ash, Natalie, and all of their friends need to get their butts out of Black City, and quick.

     For some reason the Bastet (half-cat humanoid with a deadly-to-Darkling venom) boy that Natalie saved from experimentation in Black City is thrown into the mix. His name is Elijah, and there's some weird crap about a weapon that his missing mother supposedly has that can totally turn the rebellion around and send the government running scared. This sounds very convenient, except for the fact that Elijah's mother has gone missing, along with her good friend Lucinda, who just happens to be Ash's aunt.

   

     There's more about this second installment that annoyed/frustrated me than there was that was super exciting and entertaining (so basically the exact opposite of Black City):

    1. Basically, once Ash, Natalie, and Elijah left Black City, the book took a long and unnecessary amount of time and pages to get back to something relatively important and interesting. A majority of the "drama" in this book, which was boring relationship bullshit, could have been completely avoided if Natalie had been smart.

    2. If you read Black City, you know that at the end of the book, there's this crazy fight going on and Natalie gets bitten by some little shit Darkling brat from the ghetto...where all the diseased, Wrath-ridden Darklings live. Now, if you've ever read any sort of thriller/mystery book before, you know that nothing like that ever gets written into a book unless it's going to come back to bite the characters in the butt later on. So it was no surprise to anyone who's ever read a book over a 3rd grade reading level that Natalie was going to contract Wrath. 

     Now some of you may be like "oh, but she's a human, and humans don't succumb to Wrath, their just carriers, it's no big deal!", well no, because it is a big deal. Because, as we learned in the last book, Natalie has a half-Darkling's heart in her chest, so she's got Darkling particles in her body, making her susceptible to Darkling diseases. 

     So all of the drama in the middle of this book comes from Natalie being too scared to tell Ash that she has Wrath, thinking he'll break up with her because of it. By keeping this secret, Ash thinks that she's got something going on with Elijah, bringing about the classic, love-triangle-drama that YA authors like to pull out when they've got a happy couple and a sequel novel to get through.

      So that's two things, the avoidable drama and being predictable.

     3. The time period/fashion/era of this world is still not explained. Once in a while the fashions will be mentioned and it just doesn't seem to make sense, because it's all, like, Victorian steampunk corsets and sportcoat vests, while there's all this crazy technology like tablet/digipads for TV/info, Transporter and Destroyer Ships that seem like high-tech hover vehicle prisions, and yet there are no cars, or cell phones, but there are telephones. It's just very confusing, and I'd really appreciate some sort of "guide to the times."

     4. Just like the last time there was a romantic rival for Ash and Natalie, Giselle is completely pointless.

     Please don't get me wrong; while I was disappointed in this book after the powerhouse of a novel Black City was, it was still really well-written, interesting and exciting, and the first and the third parts were really action-packed and full of constant turns and struggles. Even the second part was pretty cool because we finally got a glimpse of the Barren Lands we heard about from the Darkling wars, and the characters spent some time in the concentration camp where the Wrath was created which was super cool.

     And then the book ends by giving the reader weird situation after weird situation, wondering what the F**K is happening and wondering if these we will ever know what is going on because the impossible is happening right now, and characters are throwing themselves into dangerous situations when they don't have to.

Overall Impression:

      I got the impression that there is definitely a great story hiding out under all the the stuff that this book built on top of it. I definitely look at this book as a bridge to get from the awesomeness of book one to what i can hope will be a heart-stopping amazingness of book three. Unfortunately that means a less than perfect book two, but you know what, it's a pretty decent bridge if book three delivers like I have faith it will. 

Blonde's Rating: 4/5

Amazon's Rating: 4.3/5

Goodreads Rating: 4.2/5

Thanks for reading,

The Blonde

Black City by Elizabeth Richards

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 had never heard of this book until my supervisor recommended it to me, and I'm so glad she did. I couldn't put this book down; it was interesting and it read very easily, and the characters were great and relatable. Some of the secondary characters, like Day, and even Natalie's mother, could have been developed a bit more, and I would have been interested to see a bit more into Beetle's mind/past.

The story is set in a fictional city torn apart by war, racism, and segregation of two races: humans, and vampire-like humanoids called Darklings (so, i guess it's more like segregation between intelligent species). Most of the Darklings in the city are corralled into a ghetto called The Legion, separated from the rest of the city by a huge, imposing wall and constantly monitored by Darkling guards and human Sentry, to ensure that no one crosses over the wall, human or Darkling. it is, however, commonplace for rogue Darklings with an infectious disease called Wrath to somehow cross over. The disease eats away at their minds and flesh, and they go insane, attacking any thing and anyone.

Ash is only half Darkling, and was raised human, so after the war between the two races, he was allowed to stay on the "good" side of the wall, though he often wonders about the rest of his family on the other side. 

Natalie hates it in Black City, and wants nothing more than to leave -that is, of course, until she meets Ash, who at first she detests for his being a Darkling, and his piss-poor attitude, but then he grows on her through random acts of kindness and too many classes with poor seating options.

There was a decent amount of on-going mystery in this story, and just when it seemed like something was about to get boring -BAM! Someone dies because Natalie's being stalked, or BOOM! Natalie's douchebag bodyguard wants to fight Ash, or WHAM! there really ARE more half-Darkling children in the world! Or maybe not. Basically, it's full of twists, turns, conspiracy theories and not-so-theoretical conspiracies, and crazy blood bonds and love connections and laws that don't make sense.

I liked most of this story, so I'm just going to go into the things I didn't like or understand:

1. What are the general time-period laws of this place? One minute Natalie's wearing some kind of corset get-up and riding in an expensive, Sentry-grade horse drawn carriage, and the next she's glancing at her cell phone every ten seconds (which mysteriously wasn't mentioned at all for about 200 pages of the book -I had no idea phones existed in this universe until she was waiting for someone to text her halfway through the story). They need horse-drawn or steam-powered vehicles, but tanks roam the streets regularly, and the Emissary has a fully-equipped high tech laboratory in her basement, in which her own personal scientist is constantly doing DNA testing and experiments with some crazy-advanced technology.
I think I understand the feel that Richards was going for with this mix, but it just sort of confused me for a long time (like, whenever fashion or travel was mentioned).

2. What was the point of Evangeline? She was there for maybe 40 pages, kinda screwed up the relationship for like a day, and then she "left town" after making some threat to Natalie. I hope she has more of a role in the next book, because right now she's serving as not much more than an annoyance and a slight explanation for Ash's and Natalie's sudden bond.

3. I wish the "rules" of this universe had been explained a lot sooner in the book. It was about halfway through the book when we learn that there are some weird creatures in this world, like humanoid-cat things that have poison that can kill Darklings... That information would have been good to have earlier.

4. The last "trial" period of the story went by really quickly, and yet both narrators make reference to how its been about four weeks since the last action-y thing that happened. We had no sort of reference of time, or how miserable these characters must feel simply waiting to find out their futures.

Overall Impression:

Basically, all of my issues are things that should have been caught by a managing editor or even a copyeditor, but whatever.

I still really liked the way the story was narrated and set up, and I think the character of Ash in particular was especially convincing, which isn't common with female writers, so PROPS!

I think that the continuation of this story has a lot of potential, and I can't wait to start Phoenix.

Blonde Rating: 4.5/5
Amazon Rating: 4.1/5
GoodReads Rating: 3.8/5

The second book in the Black City series, Phoenix, comes out on June 4th.

That's all for now,
The Blonde

(Also, it's totally so cool that they blew up a rose to get this cover).