City of Dark Magic

I was really torn on this book, because I truly wanted to like it. You read the description and it has just the right kind of weirdness that should have been up my alley. There's a lot to love here, a mixture of Beethoven, alchemy, mystery, and such a vivid setting.

I had a hard time getting into it at first, because the prose has a breezy, almost chatty voice to it that felt shallow. Characters felt quirky as opposed to well-drawn, and the whole book had a bit of a "aren't we clever" tone to it. In fact, I would argue that the most realized character of the book was Prague itself, and the rest of the cast merely felt like caricatures.

Sarah isn't believable as a sleuth either, as I think others have pointed out here. She tends to stumble upon things by luck, which is a shame because as a scholar she should have been well-equipped to do serious investigation. Of course, the mystery itself is solved about half way through the book, and the rest is a jumbled mess of sub-plots that with the exception of the obvious villain are never resolved in order to make way for a sequel.

The other issue I have with this book is that it doesn't fulfill on it's promise. The hook at the beginning of the book is not just the adventure, but the character. They go to great lengths to set up all of Sarah's quirks very quickly including her lack of belief in romance/love, and how she "follows her nose" for frequent sex. Later in the book, other characters talk as if she has undergone some other change here, but there isn't anything in the actual story that supports those claims. Ultimately, she's back to where she was afterwards, seemingly unchanged or affected by the experience, or at least not believably so.

There's been a lot of complaining about the sex in this book, which I'm fine with in principle, but felt out of place in many cases to the point of being jarring. This last point in particular I have been trying to wrap my head around, because I needed to confirm with myself that I would feel the same way about ithad Sarah been a male character. After considering for several days I conclude that I would feel the same. The issue isn't who's having the sex, it's the fact that it seems to be there for it's own sake. If this were a romance novel, it would be fine, but there isn't any romance in this book. If this were erotica, that would also be ok, but the book isn't that either.


The book does have it's funny moments, and I do believe it's intended to be a funny book, particularly through the use of Sarah's inner monologue and Nico's quick wit. There are some great lines, but they often don't seem to fit the severity of the scene, or vice versa.

Ultimately, I think the challenge with this book is that it can't decide what kind of story it is trying to tell, and ends up being a smattering of everything. Add in the "aren't we clever" tone to the writing, and it becomes a disappointing read. Which is a shame, because the premise of the book has a lot to love.