Book Review: City of Nightmares by Rebecca Schaeffer

City of Nightmares by Rebecca Shaeffer

Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the ARC of City of Nightmares by Rebecca Schaeffer.

The book follows Ness who has been terrified of Nightmares ever since her sister became a man eating spider and slaughtered their father and others. In Newham dreaming means waking up as your worst fear, this could be becoming an actual monster or just waking up to look like one.

Ness does not want to be a victim so she joins the Friends of the Restful Soul an organisation that may be a cult.

After a job gone wrong Ness needs to prove herself worthy to remain so she takes a job delivering the post via boat. This however blows up in her face quite literally. After the boat is targeted by an assassination attempt Ness is one of the only survivors along with a boy who is a living nightmare. They must work together to uncover the sinister truth and return back to Newham, but can Ness get over her fear of Nightmares and work together with this boy?

I really loved the premise of the book it was a refreshing idea and the story was executed very well! I enjoyed follow Ness's character arc and her bond with her best friend Priya. It was refreshing that as the main heroine in the book Ness is flawed and working through her past trauma to overcome her fear of nightmares.

Helping her to do this is Cy's character who became a vampire via nightmare because his father is one and he did not want to be his father.

This book had lots of good twists and turns. The setting was great reminiscent of Gotham and the monsters ad nightmares were pure chaos you didn't know what would be faced or appear next.

A well crafted fantasy story that I would recommend everyone read, it was a refreshingly different take on the trope of dreams affecting real life and it was highly enjoyable.

The ending leaves the book open to a sequel and I look forward to seeing what comes next in this series.

Thank you again to Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley for the advance reader copy for an honest review.

Thanks for Reading!