A review by scrollsofdragons
Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody

5.0

For starters, the book is a beauty and it contains marvelous art inside, with childish annotations of the characters which I think are part of the blueprints where Sorina created them with the murderers notes layered on top, both creepy and sad because you know there is an upcoming death for that character.

I was captivated from the first page, I love a good murder mystery especially one in a fantasy setting. I just really enjoyed this book from start to finish, all the characters were endearing, the setting was lush and I was kept constantly engaged. I cannot wait for more from this world.

If I had any negative it would be the worldbuilding, while the carnival itself, religion, sexuality and politics wise it was strong, it felt like all the worldbuilding went into the carnival. I want to know more about the world as a whole, then just the city that moves through it, and it was lacking that. The strong plot however kept this from being wholly noticeable.

I've been saying for ages, that if you're writing a fantasy I don't see why you have to fall back on the sexist, heteronormative societies, and this one thankfully didn't. It was a casual thing in this world to be either gay or straight or bi which was so refreshing.

Spoiler

I wasn't expecting the dad to be the murderer, though it makes sense and really he did literally tell her that the murders had something to do with politics and it did. The murderer's notes on the blueprints however just sounded like a very violent, angry person who was out to get at Sorina, so that threw me off from thinking it was him. It's kinda sad too because he just seemed like such a good person and a wonderful father although it turned out not so wonderful.

Spoiler