Title: The Masked City
Author: Genevieve Cogman
Pages: 352
Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Steampunk (?)
Source: Free ARC from Berkley
Rating: A
Note: As stated under the Source (above), I received this book for free from Berkley via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review (and trust me, honest is always what you’ll get).
Review: As this is the second in a series, the first of which I fell madly in love with straightaway, you’d think I’d be falling all over myself again. Especially given that I enjoyed this even more than the first! Yet, I feel less excited about it. It’s a strange sort of feeling and I can’t get my head wrapped around the why of it.
I’d wholeheartedly recommend The Masked City (given you’ve already read The Invisible Library). The storyline is immensely entertaining, even smarter than the first, goes deeper into the overall world building of the series, and we start to see some relationships changing, two in particular (is there a chance of a love triangle in the future?!?) that I’m very excited about. But I’m not wanting to put on my party pants, so I’m guessing it’s a state of mind thing.
In this second installment, Kai is kidnapped to a different world, one that is heavy on chaos and therefore antithetical to Kai’s dragon nature. As such, his family, powerful though they may be, cannot assist in his rescue, leaving Irene, and eventually Vale, on a mission to save Kai from whatever dastardly plans the Fae have for him. In so doing, she may have to break some rules, perhaps even Library rules, but Kai’s life (and the life of many others) is on the line, and she will stop at nothing to set him free.
The storyline is more complex than the first, and a great deal more is learned about the nature of Fae and dragon alike. A much more immersive experience than the first (and I basically fangirl’d about the first, remember?). It being the end of the summer (in other words, my kids have been off school since end of May!) and having just started up a new semester myself, I suspect my brain was simply too tired for such cleverness. Which is a count against me, not against Ms. Cogman. My non-tired brain loves cleverness.
Since the third in the series is scheduled to be released in the US in January 2017, my brain has lots of time to gear up for what I’m sure will be the best yet – The Burning Page. And in the meantime, I suspect I might sneak in a reread, in the pursuit of the thrill my tired brain cheated me out of this time.
Definitely recommend it, especially if you have an interest in continuing the series (as I do), because reading the third book without having read the second would be kind of weird, right?And these books are just so damned entertaining. I don’t know how you could pass them up. 😉