Mystic City
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Aria Rose, youngest scion of one of Mystic City's two ruling rival families, finds herself betrothed to Thomas Foster, the son of her parents' sworn enemies. The union of the two will end the generations-long political feud — and unite all those living in the Aeries, the privileged upper reaches of the city, against the banished mystics who dwell below in the Depths.
But Aria doesn't remember falling in love with Thomas; in fact, she wakes one day with huge gaps in her memory. And she can't conceive why her parents would have agreed to unite with the Fosters in the first place.
Only when Aria meets Hunter, a gorgeous rebel mystic from the Depths, does she start to have glimmers of recollection — and to understand that he holds the key to unlocking her past. The choices she makes can save or doom the city — including herself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Several generations into climate change, parts of Manhattan are 30 feet underwater, and class divisions are progressing rapidly down the path H.G. Wells envisioned. The air-conditioned heights of the Aeries are havens of thuggish privilege, while in the swampy Depths are the poor and the mystics, a strictly controlled class of magicians whose powers are drained to keep them in check. Aria Rose is the only daughter of a city powerbroker and has lost weeks of her memory to a recreational drug overdose. In that lost time, she had a whirlwind romance with the scion of a rival family or so her parents tell her. A dynastic marriage has been arranged in the name of "true love." But if Aria was so in love with Thomas Foster, why is she obsessed with a rogue mystic who haunts her movements and her dreams? Debut author Lawrence's writing is assured, though pacing and characterization take second place to the milieu. Aria is surrounded by gorgeous yet bland secondary characters, and it takes a while to warm up to her predicament. Ages 12 up.
