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Today we have a recent novel by Keri Arthur entitled City of Light: An Outcast Novel.
The backstory here is extensive and requires some explanation. At some point in the not-too-distant future, mankind goes to war with a race of supernatural beings called shifters. To combat this threat, humanity creates the déchet, warriors imbued with the animal DNA of the shifters. Unfortunately, the déchet were not enough, and nukes were eventually used. Sadly, the bombs opened up rifts between our world and the next, allowing the Others to invade. These beings include wraiths and vampires, and they have since become the scourge of both humans and shifters.
Flash forward a century later. Almost all the déchet got killed in the war, but a female named Tiger has survived. She lives in a bunker with a score of ghosts. Oh, yeah, she can talk with ghosts. One day, she saves a girl named Penny and her shifter guardian Jonas from vampires outside the perpetually-lit city of Central. Tiger patches up Jonas (even though as a shifter he's her mortal enemy) and takes them to the outcast settlement of Chaos which lies on the other side of Central. After an unfriendly welcome, Tiger meets mysterious human Nuri who, along with Jonas and other shifters, enlists her help in recovering a score of children who have been kidnapped in broad daylight--an apparent impossibility considering the sun is deadly to the Others.
Tiger then heads to the remains of the city of Carleen to talk with the ghosts there. She discovers a rift--a doorway to another place--and goes through it. She ends up in a Central brothel and realizes its owners are in league with the Others. She goes to report back to Nuri but runs into her old friend and occasional lover Sal whom she hasn't seen in over a century. They waste no time getting reacquainted (wink, wink), but she soon has doubts about him. Just where has he been for the past 105 years and what has he been up to? And why does someone else have his exact same scent (Tiger has an amazing sense of smell)? She has to sort things out and figure out where the missing children are, but she may have to make a tremendous sacrifice in the process.
City of Light is a very imaginative novel and a fresh take on the urban fantasy genre. I like what Keri Arthur has done here. She has created a compelling world and filled it with interesting characters. It's a great setting and I'd like to see more of it in the future. It's slow to get going, but eventually your patience pays off.
But potential readers should be forewarned: This novel has the most graphic sex scenes I've ever read--and I've read a lot. Prudish readers should stay away as things gets very intense.
But if you can get past that, you'll find a story well worth reading.
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