Do you like enemies-to-lovers, fake dating, sexy winged people, and sexual tension like a raging conflagration? Then City of Souls by Mel Harding-Shaw will sweep you away.
City of Souls is set in a future Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington, NZ). A cataclysmic merging of worlds happened some years in the past, and the damaged composite city is a dangerous place. Lies must be untangled, mysteries explored, and a new threat to the city faced. Oh, and now there’s a whole heap of sexy winged elementals living in the city, plus one woman who looks human, but isn’t.
The POV characters both have believable wounds that guide their actions and throw a spanner in the works of their developing relationship. Sometimes their thoughts of each other are harsh, but upon a moment’s reflection I could always see how their pasts had led to them thinking that way. If you are a fan of the ‘enemies-to-lovers’ trope then this book is tailor-made for you.
Although I’ve lived in the South Island for some years now, I’m a Wellington girl at heart. I spent the whole book thinking ‘Is this what paranormal romance is like for Americans??? This is amazing!’ Because I’ve never before had that experience of reading a book in which a place I am so familiar with is altered in such interesting ways. I could immediately identify almost every location and building mentioned.
Books set in places like New York and San Francisco don’t have the same impact for me because I’ve never been there. But to read a story like this set in my home city was brain-exploding in the best way. At one point in the story, the MC is walking up to the University and runs into danger. I went to Vic Uni myself, so that road (that damned road on the damned hill) is one I have hauled my arse up countless times on my way to lectures. It was so awesome seeing that familiar setting in a fresh, exciting way.
I really hope this book does well because I want to see more books like this. We have a bit of a problem in the speculative genres in Aotearoa in that most local publishers don’t want speculative fiction, so writers here often have to, for fully understandable reasons (i.e. being able to afford food and shelter), self publish and sell to an international audience and so that unique ‘Kiwiness’ gets diluted.
Books that break this pattern are often either on the ‘edges’ of speculative fiction – i.e. they appeal to literary readers, or they are smaller in scope, such as a novella (not to knock novellas – I love novellas). There are notable (and wonderful!) exceptions, of course, but this is the general pattern. I’m not blaming anyone for this (except perhaps the publishers who ought to take a wider range of fiction onto their lists) — it’s just a thing that happens due to circumstances and culture.
But Harding-Shaw hasn’t walked that path. She’s written a truly Kiwi book, in the genre she wanted to write in, and in the scope she wanted to write in.
I want to see more books like this that are ‘go big or go home’ unapologetically Kiwi, no holds barred. Let’s have more winged elementals greeting visitors in te reo and upnod greetings and no one ever sitting on a kitchen bench. I want to read more books in which I can picture the exact shade of the sky solely by the description of the weather, while at the same time reading about fantastical, grand-scale magical adventures. I know the speculative writers of Aotearoa can write those books, and want to write those books. The question has always been whether enough international readers will take a punt on stories that hail from Aotearoa and reference our culture, because without that buy-in there’s not a lot of money for authors on this path.
So I hope that City of Souls does fantastically well, and helps pave the way for more books that make me go “This! I recognise this more than anything else I’ve read yet in the subgenre!”
Bounty hunter Hel’s life depends on staying below the radar and passing as human. But when the infuriating Lord of the City of Souls discovers her hidden power is the key to solving his problems, he reclaims her bond-debt and drags her into the spotlight. He’ll protect her secrets on one condition—that she does everything he asks.
Winged necromancer Bastion would do anything to save the city he rules from the strange magic menacing their world. Even blackmail the angry, intriguing bounty hunter who despises him. As the rulers of the elemental courts converge to face the threat, he’s not sure who hates him more—them or Hel. The only way to keep her close is to make her pretend she’s his.
With dark magic tearing at the fabric of reality and betrayal lurking behind every corner, Hel and Bastion’s fake relationship becomes the only thing either of them can rely on. But Bastion’s past might just come back to kill him.
And Hel’s might kill them all.
City of Souls is book one of the Soul Court Ascension trilogy—a steamy enemies to lovers Paranormal Romance with a side of Urban Fantasy.
