Series: The Divine Cities

First a bit of advice, read City of Stairs first. Yes, City of Blades may be almost able to stand on its own, but Stairs is so good and will give you such a better feeling for the main characters in this book and the world they live in. Although City of Blades is the second in the trilogy, it feels different from Stairs. Stairs was action and magic and politics. Blades is a little darker, sadder, tougher, but just as good, if not better. Our main character this time around is retired General Turyin Mulagesh. she may be one of my favorite heroines. She's over-50, an alcoholic, one-armed (due to an incident in Stairs), a bit lonely, and full of regrets. But, man, she is tough and smart and caring and tenacious and totally capable of killing you in multiple ways. She is awesome, period. I may still have a bit of a crush on Sigrud, but Turyin even outshines him. She...

The world in City of Stairs is awesome! Deities used to be involved in a close, daily basis with their followers, building and changing the world, allowing one country to rule. The gods have been killed or have disappeared, their people now at the mercy of others, the city itself transformed, the weather changing. It is not surprising that there are some in Bulikov who are not happy living under the thumb of their conquerors, some who are wiling to do whatever they can to make Bulikov thrive again. Into this arena arrives Shara, a woman whose job as an intelligence agent is to maintain the status quo but whose interests lie in the past, in the history of the gods and the miracles they allowed. She has chosen this assignment to investigate the murder of a man she truly admired, but when we're talking about governments and politics and gods, dead or not, it gets complicated. Shara begins to suspect that those closest to...