Shrill Dusk
Shrill Dusk City of Magic, Book 1 by Helen Harper Helen Harper Sci Fi & Fantasy Pub Date 04 Jan 2019
Review
Shrill Dusk is an entertaining urban fantasy that doesn’t take itself too seriously. After neatly skirting the apocalypse, Manchester has become infused with magic. Most flee the city, while others, discovering their unique heritage stay. Charley is a professional gambler with a heart of gold. She likes helping people and tends to think of others first, not always to her benefit. What she doesn’t realize is that she has the potential to be a leader, or the firepower to back it up.
Do people need strict laws? Or can they survive with openness and pure democracy? That’s the question at the end of Shrill Dusk, and one that will be important in future novels. Charley is an idealist and has the magic to protect her group. The werewolves have their own protection. Shrill Dusk’s purpose was to create the setting, demonstrate the type of person Charley is, and create a post-magical apocalypse society. It’s a training ground and in some ways a prequel more than a stand alone novel. It spins off of Helen Harper’s already established fractured faerie series.
4 / 5
I received a copy of Shrill Dusk from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.
— Crittermom
Description
Charley is a cleaner by day and a professional gambler by night. She might be haunted by her tragic past but she's never thought of herself as anything or anyone special. Until, that is, things start to go terribly wrong all across the city of Manchester. Between plagues of rats, firestorms and the gleaming blue eyes of a sexy Scottish werewolf, she might just have landed herself in the middle of a magical apocalypse. She might also be the only person who has the ability to bring order to an utterly chaotic new world. This is the first book in The City Of Magic series.
