Hi friends, happy Friday! I hope you’ve had a good week! Today I’m posting my review of Amanda Foody’s novel Daughter of the Burning City.

Daughter of the Burning City by: Amanda Foody: Sorina has lived within the Gomorrah Festival her whole life, using her rare gift of creating illusions. She can make people see things that aren’t there, as well create solid beings with their own personalities; those creations are her family and they make up the Festival’s Freak Show. But when someone starts to murder them, she must now go to any and all lengths to protect her chosen family. This novel had so many twists and turns to it, which made for such a thrilling read. The reader never knew what was going to happen next and that was the excitement of it all. This was a fun fantasy world; the world building was expansive and creative. There were times the reader was taken out of the story because they didn’t quite understand how everything worked, but it was short lived because the author did a great job of describing things. The whole concept behind creating illusions was so fascinating and we really got to explore them through the mystery plot. The reader really enjoyed how the fantasy elements came together with the mystery ones because it made for such imaginative storytelling. Speaking of, the characters were all so different and dynamic with more depth than the reader would have expected from illusions that were created that didn’t really have a backstory, because they just appeared one day. When the characters were being introduced in the beginning, the reader found it hard to keep track of who was who because we met them all at the same time and there were so many. But as the novel continued and we got to learn who each character was, it got easy to distinguish everyone. Each one of them felt memorable and had an interesting journey to go on. The betrayals and heart ache all felt so real and watching the characters go through it all felt raw and definitely tugged at the heart strings. The poor main character went through so much, but she really pulled through in the end. For a standalone fantasy novel, this was really well done; the world was unique, the characters were flawed in all the right ways, even the evil ones, and the writing was well done because it left the reader satisfied, but still wanting more.