City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett – Review

Published: May 2, 2017

Publisher: Broadway Books

Genre: Fantasy

Series: The Divine Cities #3

Pages: 464 (Paperback)

My Rating: 4.0/5.0

A review copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

Revenge. It’s something Sigrud je Harkvaldsson is very, very good at. Maybe the only thing.

So when he learns that his oldest friend and ally, former Prime Minister Shara Komayd, has been assassinated, he knows exactly what to do and that no mortal force can stop him from meting out the suffering Shara’s killers deserve.

Yet as Sigrud pursues his quarry with his customary terrifying efficiency, he begins to fear that this battle is an unwinnable one. Because discovering the truth behind Shara’s death will require him to take up arms in a secret, decades-long war, face down an angry young god, and unravel the last mysteries of Bulikov, the city of miracles itself. And perhaps most daunting of all finally face the truth about his own cursed existence.

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RJB man, this book made me SO SAD. City of Miracles was a very strong installment in the Divine Cities series and I was so happy to finally have a book largely about Sigrud. I wasn’t really expecting what I got from this book and in no way do I mean that negatively. I didn’t have anything specific in mind… but what I read was surprisingly introspective.

Sigrud je Harkvaldsson has been through much in his life. From a painful stint in the worst of prisons to the loss of his daughter and everything in between, Sigrud had begun to feel that he deserves the punishment he has endured and that he would remain in exile the remainder of his life. When news that Ashara Komayd, his former partner and friend, has been assassinated, Sigrud chooses to leave his exile and avenge her death. This is a simple enough task, but it is of course complicated by the fact that a new god seems to be rising in Bulikov and threatens the existence of the only two people Sigrud cares about in this world- Tatyana Komayd and Ivanya, her adopted aunt.

City of Miracles had a good storyline and I thought it was a much more personal story than perhaps the first two simply because there seemed to more of a focus on Sigrud, Tatyana, and Ivanya. There were some emotionally charged scenes and RJB had my eyes welling up with tears on a few occasions throughout. The plot and the new divine villain were done well as expected, though it felt somewhat more shallow than the plot of City of Stairs and City of Blades.

Overall, I thought City of Miracles was a fine installment and think it makes for a nice conclusion to the series (I haven’t been able to find definitive answer on whether this is the final book, but it felt like a conclusion). I would also like to mention that I read this in print/ebook format whereas I had the audio format of the first two books. For me, it worked just as well in print as in audio except now I have a better grasp of how all the names and locations are spelled! I’m pretty pleased with how things turned out and I wholeheartedly recommend this series to anyone who hasn’t had the good fortune to pick it up yet!