| Series: Ordshaw stand alone | Rating: 5/5 |
| Date of Publishing: April 8th 2019 | Genre: fantasy, urban fantasy |
| Publisher: Rumian Publishing | Available: Amazon |
| Number of pages: 132 | Author’s website: https://phil-williams.co.uk/ |
Quote of the Book
“The voice clearly pronounced a word she understood: “Ordshaw.” Then it continued in rapid Japanese, before fading slowly away.
Hell. This was stranger than picking up a random sound. Why would anyone in this dive of a building be talking about Ordshaw? That couldn’t be coincidence.
The voice was gone, leaving only cold, empty nothingness.
Tova whipped up the VHR-38, clipped it in and flipped the switch. It crackled horrifically in her ear and she half-tumbled out of the bed as she tore the processor off again.
Holy hell.
For a split second, a grotesque mix of white noise and something else–an organic, pained screech. It was right there–a noise right by her ear. But there was nothing. Nothing else in the room, just the dark.”
Blurb
Tova’s getting her hearing back. She’s going to wish she wasn’t.
Alone in Tokyo for experimental ear surgery, Tova Nokes is finally shaking up her life. But when she starts to hear things she shouldn’t, all she wants is to make it home alive.
There’s a voice saying it’s where she comes from that makes her special.
If she can only survive violent stalkers, and the terrible screams, she might figure out why…
The City Screams is a stand-alone thriller in the Ordshaw urban fantasy series.
Personal notes
A special thank you to the author Phil Williams, who offered a copy for review after I hijacked his twitter thread.
Review
Tova travels to Japan after getting a chance to have a surgery to recover her hearing. It gets weird from there.
Jumping in mid-series always has me unsure if my floundering about is me with the usual getting used to a new world stuff, or the fact that I maybe missed something important by not reading previous stories. Things straighten out for me though, and by the end, I saw that the not knowing the answer to the few things that may have been learned through prior books (or forgotten since I rarely reread the summary after I add them) is what made this story so fun to read and I loved that I was as clueless as Tova as to what was going on.
I loved Tova and her braveness – not only for being a trooper with the crazy stuff that happens to her but for trying to break away from the safe zone she lives in by going after a chance for herself, and her heartbreak when it looks like a failure and that she doesn’t crumble for long. She’s great and all her struggles, fears, and joys, were shown so well.
The story is nicely paced with little bits dropped here and there that kept me wanting to know more (seriously, you should see my notes) and then it cranks the dial and ramps up everything to twelve – I couldn’t put the book down for the rest of the afternoon.
There were a few things I was unsure of – like why just being from Ordshaw made Tova a special interest to anyone in the first place, and some of the ending was a bit unclear to me. But this did what I think these extended series novellas should do – and that is get me interested in the world, give me a taste without giving me everything, and do it while being a ton of fun. In that, this book succeeded on all levels.
Total addictive blast!
This review was written by Jen (BunnyReads)
I live in the northern part of BC, where it’s winter for more of the year than I’d like. The plus side of not liking to be out in the cold, means I get to cuddle up under a blanket next to a fireplace and read.
My husband and I have a few horses, free run some chickens, and of course there are bunnies… a lot of bunnies. The horses are his and the bunnies are mine, but he’s a good man and tries to love them too-even when they eat all his newly transplanted saplings.
When I’m not reading, or doing farm and animal chores - I love listening to music, painting, tv and movies, and walking.
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