“Even after everyone had thoroughly proven that loving me is an impossible task, I threw myself at her like the dipshit I am.”
Sometimes I take a long time to read books – really great books, mind you – but I find I get distracted and overwhelmed with life and my reading goes on the backburner. But sometimes I pick up a book that somehow tickles my brain in just the right way that I literally cannot set it down. A book so enthralling that I will dedicate hours out of the day just to keep reading and reading because I could not bear to focus on something else knowing that I could be finding out what happens next. Kira Adler’s Twisted Sorcery falls into the latter category. This dark sapphic romance between a vampire and a witch hit all the marks that I was looking for when I picked it up and then it exceeded even further.
Deni is a disenfranchised, newly turned vampire living in Midnight City. Living with nothing more than a piss-stained mattress, piles of musty clothes, and near-empty bloodbags, she is desperate for any way to make money. But in the metropolis of Midnight City, if you aren’t already rich, being turned to a vampire is a one-way ticket to poverty. Forced to turn to prostitution, Deni finds herself caught in the center of a web far bigger than she could have ever anticipated. And the one manipulating that web…
Celeste is a powerful witch running a ring of organized crime in Midnight City. But simply living a wealthy, luxurious, perfume-coated life isn’t enough to keep her safe. And her enemies know exactly how to hurt her the most.
Deni and Celeste. Together they are a rose bush wrapped in lace – delicate, yet filled with thorns. And those thorns scratch. They bleed. They hurt. It’s not their fault; like the thorns on a rose stem, Deni and Celeste have surrounded themselves with protective barriers because their past experiences have told them that love hurts – that love is a dangerous thing. These are two women who have been shaped by their trauma, yet they are not defined by it. And over time, with care and patience, the rose buds blossom and something truly beautiful is created.
There’s an inherent power imbalance in what they have. At times it teeters on the edge of “this feels morally unethical, yet if it is wrong then I don’t want it to be right.” They fight, they yell, they run away – from each other and from the idea of love – but they learn to be patient. They learn to care for each other. It’s not all cozy cuddle sessions and tea parties (though there is some of that); these characters are flawed, and their flaws are a driving force in the narrative.. There were moments between these two characters that felt so emotionally raw it was like having someone grip my heart and squeeze it with an iron-clad fist.
The world-building was also stellar. In a plot and character driven novel, I found that Kira Adler does a phenomenal job weaving the world into the story. We get just enough info about Midnight City sprinkled throughout the story that I felt I could immerse myself in it without relying heavily on paragraphs of world-building. I really enjoyed how fantasy races were integrated into society in a way that felt realistic to how they would fit in a 21st century city. It flipped many tropes on the head by having classic monster movie creatures not be all-powerful. Vampires struggle to find steady work and afford blood. Witches have lost a lot of influence and knowledge due to persecution. Sirens are powerful, but risk driving themselves and others mad when using their song. There’s also minotaurs, djinn, lycanthropes, ghouls, and seraphim. I’d love to see more of these races if (please please please) we get more Midnight City!
This book tackles some pretty heavy real-world issues. Being a vampire often serves as an allegory for poverty and wealth inequity (often faced by lgbtq+ individuals). Deni remarks on the unfairness of the world – that the only way to make her own situation better is to make other people’s situation worse. Wealthy humans seem to have no issue becoming vampires, but for someone like Deni – a lesbian woman disowned by her christian family – it means living without knowing when her next drink of blood will be. There’s also intense depictions of attempted SA and of drug addiction and withdrawal, so please proceed with caution.
A quick shoutout to the supporting cast. Mav was a great character. Living in a similar situation as Deni, he often served as her rock when nobody else was there. And Mel, the siren “blazin’ guns” who works for Celeste. Her crass attitude was a good relief between the tense moments.
Overall, this book really stood out to me. I will, without a doubt, reread sooner rather than later. And I will be waiting very patiently (twitching and foaming at the mouth) for more from this author and more of Midnight City. This book is so real and raw and spicy and definitely worth the read.