City of Lies

Sam Hawke???s debut, City of Lies was originally released in 2018. It tells the story of it???s three main characters, Jovan, Kalina and the soon to be Chancellor, Tain. The main backdrop of the story takes place in the city of Silasta. A city that lives in hubris and ignorance, and as the book unfolds you get a clear picture of how this affects the population.

As an opening line, Hawke starts with one of the most memorable first lines that I have read, ???I was seven years old the first time my uncle poisoned me???, and from that we are introduced to the world of Jovan. One, in a long line of proofers, who maintains the safety of the leader of Silasta, the Chancellor, by having an ability to recognise the multitude of poisons that may kill a person.
What we learn from there is that this is the family business and Jovan is trained extensively by his Uncle Etan to recognise the different poisons, form an immunity and develop his ability to fashion antidotes for these deadly substances.

The drama begins innocuously enough with a series of seemingly unrelated events. However, as the plot unfolds, Jovan, Kalina and Tain are thrust into a world of intrigue, murder and secrets as both Jovan and Kalina???s Uncle Etan and Tain???s Uncle, the Chancellor, are poisoned.

Tain is thrust into the role of Chancellor, and whilst the city turns out to mourn the loss of the leading ruler of Silasta, an unknown army of invaders besieges the city. Without an army to protect them, the inhabitants of the city must band together to defend their city against an enemy that will not listen to reason or to their pleas of negotiation.

In City of Lies, Hawke presents us with an interesting take on the city under siege tale, instead of focussing on huge epic battles (there are some in there for all you battle mad readers!), she instead focuses on the small scale wars. The hunt to find the poisoner and the perpetrators of the plot against the city, who are sure to strike again. She also focuses on the reason for the siege and how and why this happened. What Jovan, Kalina and Tain learn, is that the demands of the city and its treatment of its people are the direct cause of this situation.

The story is a first person narrative, told from the POV of Joran and Kalina and we watch the events unfold through these two characters eyes and whilst they describe the events tat take place, we also watch as they develop in their roles and as characters.

Interestingly, whilst Hawke bases her story in fantasy, she brings real world problems into the story. Both of her characters are affected by illness in some way. Jovan describes symptoms of OCD and anxiety, whilst Kalina is affected by an unknown condition that causes her fatigue. Hawke raises some pertinent issues in these two characters. With Jovan, his OCD is part of him and even though he has a mental health problem, he is able to function in society and perform a valuable role in addition to dealing with his difficulties, not despite his mental health issues. However, she presents us with a differing view of Kalina in that her problems are more physical, and Hawke explores how other people view disability and how they see that a person with disability should fit into that role.

Additionally, she brings in wider issues, such as climate change, the effect of disregarding tradition and also the treatment of other cultures.

Hawke???s whodunnit approach is a good read and as the plot reveals its layers, the story twists and turns leading you in one direction and then the other. She weaves character development and world building in an accomplished manner, carefully constructing the world around her characters. At no point does she give any inkling of how the story ends, but when it reaches its conclusion, you are left satisfied with how it turns out.

City of Lies has an intriguing premise - we are following the story of a poison taster, loyal to the rulers of the city state that the story is set in. Our main character is thrust into his role when his father and mentor is successfully poisoned along with the then ruler. In a somewhat nepotistic way the roles of ruler and food taster both pass on to the respective sons.

In the background of this there is growing unrest in the provinces around the main city - the city's elites are using their position to repress and abuse the population in the areas surrounding the city, largely peopled by a different ethnicity.

The political maneuverings and twists form the backbone of this narrative. They are worked well with interesting twists following right to the end. There are some distinctly dodgy story elements (how a rebel army is maneuvered and armed with no one having any clue about it pushes at the boundary of believability). The lack of thought towards the poorer parts of the society is well done though.

My main gripe really is with the writing style. I found it slightly distant and hard to engage with. For me this is a competent fantasy debut - I am intrigued enough to want to see where this is going. Is it perfect? no. Is it interesting? yes.

Started with a strong, interesting hook but then devolved into such tediousness that left me so bored, I skipped hundreds of pages to the end to find out the identity of the villains – which I'd guessed at within the first couple of chapters. Wow. Thank goodness I didn't waste more of my time on this novel.

City of Lies, an epic fantasy, is one of my favorite books of 2018. Though it features poison, betrayal, and war, it's ultimately an optimistic book with genuine main protagonists who tenaciously pursue truth and justice while trying to unravel the mysteries of their city. I found it to lag at times, yet I loved the story and characters so much that the positive aspects more than made up for a bit of slowness???plus it was nearly impossible to put down during the last 30%!

Full Review on My Website

I quit 10% in and I will tell you all why.

First of all, I did not start to read this because of Robin Hobb. She seems nice and all, her books are just incredibly depressing and when a series makes my life quality worse there is no way for me to justify reading it. Again, it's not about her as a person. I really wanted to like her stuff, for a time I even kept telling my then-flatmate that my book was “going great” and “it was interesting” and “I'm sure it's just about to pick up”. It was so bland and depressing.
So yeah, my decision to pick this up was based on the little blurb and NOT because of expectations caused by loving Hobb. With that out of the way... I'm going to rant now. (Do I have to point out that I have no issues with the author? I don't know ANYTHING about her. Nothing.)

I can't stand a lot of the new fantasy being published nowadays. I'm not saying they have no place and they shouldn't exist, but I want to avoid them all like the plague. So what is my issue? The goal. The goal of the author totally misses the goal of me reading these books. What I'm looking for is some kind of an adventure, something fun that draws me in. What the author is trying to do is turning fantasy into something that takes itself too seriously, it tries to be too poetic and yes, even pretentious. The fun and enjoyment is lost by trying to be too deep, the movement and exploration is lost when it's all an exercise in writing something they believe will be “taken seriously”. The balance of well-written stories and characters and the spark of it being an enjoyable read is completely lost.
Exactly that happened here. Before anyone says “but people died here”, I don't mean constant fun times, just... I guess if I could exactly explain I would be writing it, eh? Some sense of wonder.

What we got instead was just a lot of fantasy language. It's too much, with too little context to really get a picture of it all. The frame of reference is pretty much “see? The world is rich and you will probably, maybe get it later or something”. To me that's pretty much just a shortcut to world building and I don't like it. It needs to be portioned out a bit, I won't just buy it because of sombre prose.
The characters were the same as well. Two siblings who sound exactly the same as POV characters. What the frick is the use of having them if there is nothing specific about either? They both sound boring and serious. When the book is in first person I need to buy the emotions of the character and none of that happens here, they both clinically describe being sad.

And one more thing. When a book takes its time to deliver one more preachy monologue of “but the women are all so oppressed, but here we are so open minded and in tune with 2018” instead of actually pulling me in... it's stupid. It's also such a cliche now, it's a miracle if we don't get one in every single bloody book. Fuck subtlety, just tell me I should be congratulated for living with a vagina.

So yeah, I don't like it, I will read something else instead.

Have a good evening and pick your poison!

A fun escape when I needed a fantasy book to dive into, with much political intrigue (just the way I like it) and thriller elements. The two main characters were coded as having OCD and chronic illness respectively, and I can't speak to whether or not the depictions were accurate. The world building was interesting and had some more-explicit-than-most-fantasy-books critiques of colonialism and the mistreatment of indigenous peoples, but the message became heavy handed quickly, and the allegory of the Darfri as an indigenous people felt a bit stereotypical at times.

I read this because I thought the premise sounded interesting. We get a lot of stories about poisoners in fantasy whether it be assassin's or what have you. It was interesting to me to see a premise about a family that proof's the chancellor's food and drink i.e. tests them for poisons before consumption.

In the end it wasn't quite what I expected as it was more of a mystery then anything else, but said mystery was interesting with nice world building and a few fantastical elements thrown in there. Nothing really blew me away, but I thought it was very solid. 

Talk about one hell of a debut.

Take a compelling murder mystery, set it in vivid new world, and populate it with brilliant characters, and you might begin to realize how great City of Lies is.

We experience the story through the eyes of Jovan and his sister, Kalina. Both serve the Chancellor's heir, Tain, with Jovan discreetly sampling all of Tain's food to check for poison. The idea of a food tester was something I'd seen before, but this explored the position in depth. Of course it makes sense for a “proofer” to be intimately familiar with subtle poisons and their antidotes. Why else have a poison tester in the first place?

Poison serves as a central theme in this story. When Jovan's uncle (his tutor in the art of poison) and the Chancellor are murdered by what seems to be a previously unknown poison, Jovan resolves to get to the heart of the mystery. Kalina and Jovan slowly uncover the deadly secrets hidden by the leaders of the city.

Throughout all of this, an army lays siege to the city and we discover alongside the main characters that magic might not be as impossible as they believed.

It's been a while since I've read characters as compelling as Jovan and Kalina. Both are decent human beings, have to overcome mental and physical health challenges, and don't resort to fighting an army of bad guys single handedly. Their alternating POVs (both in first person) complemented each other well, and their differing views of each other added depth to already nuanced characters.

There are so many things to love about City of Lies. The story is tightly plotted, with every little detail chosen with care and more relevant than it first seems. The world depicted is as imaginative as it is compelling. The themes of social inequality and cultural oppression make for fascinating reading and are relevant in today's world.

And the characters...if only every book could have a Jovan or Kalina.

Sam Hawke is one hell of a writer. I never would have suspected this was a debut novel if I hadn't known that going in. Once this story gripped me, it didn't let go until I'd finished the entire thing a day later. I can't wait to see where the story goes from here.