cover image The Ruined City

The Ruined City

Paula Brandon. Spectra, $15 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-0-553-58382-3

The genre-blending sequel to 2011’s The Traitor’s Daughter continues the story of Jianna Belandor, the sheltered offspring of a powerful lord. When she returns to her home after being abducted and rescued, she finds the city in ruins, her home partially burned down, and her father missing. A revolution is looming, a plague is killing people and turning them into the wandering dead, and a mysterious magical wellspring known as the Source will cause a devastating cataclysm if arcanists can’t stop it. Brandon’s character development is exceptional, as is her ability to interweave numerous story lines into a briskly paced narrative. Paradoxically, the overriding strength of this saga—the audacious fusion of fantasy and romance with amphibian humanoids, automatons, and a zombie apocalypse—is also its biggest weakness. Readers expecting a conventional fantasy may be put off by the ambitiously creative story, but fantasy and romance fans looking for something unusual will find this amalgamation wildly entertaining. (Mar.)