🏛️🪙Fallen City🪙 🏛️

• Adrienne Young @adrienneyoungbooks

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The atmosphere is rich and luscious throughout. Temples, togas, gods and priestesses – everything you’d expect from a Greco-Roman inspired fantasy.

Maris Casperia is a Magistrate’s daughter. Her fate has been written for her since the day she was born, destined to inherit her mother’s seat and serve in the Consul’s government. Meanwhile, Luca Matius was pulled from the Citadel’s slums as a boy when his uncle failed to produce an heir. Thrust into this world, Luca clings to his noviceship with a heretic philosopher. The Magistrate’s daughter and the rebel legionnaire defy all odds and begin a star-crossed love affair, just as they find themselves on opposites sides of a war that has been decades in the making.

I felt some of the story could have been fleshed out slightly more, the only reason this is a four star instead of five. It could have benefited for an extra 100 pages (or maybe that’s me just longing for more of this world). The story is told in a dual timeline – before and during the war – and the reader is drip-fed information until it all culminates in the latter half of the book. Trust me when I say I could not stop listening!

The political intrigue and power plays were so amazing. If you’re a fan of courts (or in this case, governments), loyalties and betrayals, then you will devour this one. The present-day storyline also focuses heavily on the war, the city under siege and strategy.

I’d recommend to fans of Rebecca Ross because, even though this is adult, it had similar lyrical and dreamy prose. I will definitely be looking to read more of Adrienne Young’s work – especially the Unmaking of June Farrow, which has been on my radar for ages – and will be eagerly awaiting the sequel to Fallen City.

Have you read any Adrienne Young? If so, which of hers would you recommend?

Thanks to @titanbooks and @bolindaaudio for the advanced copy!