City of Nightmares

By: Rebecca Schaeffer

Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld

In a Gotham-inspired city where people go to sleep and wake up as their own nightmares, perfectly normal, perfectly terrified Ness must face her biggest fears, before she ends up a casualty in some else's villainous war.

Face your fear...or become your nightmare.

Ever since her sister became a man-eating spider and slaughtered her way through town, nineteen-year-old Ness has been terrified—terrified of some other Nightmare murdering her, and terrified of ending up like her sister. Because in Newham, the city that never sleeps, dreaming means waking up as your worst fear.

Whether that means becoming a Nightmare that's monstrous only in appearance, or transforming into a twisted, unrecognizable creature that terrorizes the city, no one is safe. Ness will do anything to avoid becoming another victim, even if that means lying low among the Friends of the Restful Soul, a questionable organization that may or may not be a cult.

But being a member of this maybe-cult has a price. In order to prove herself, Ness cons her way into what's supposed to be a simple job for the organization—only for it to blow up in her face. Literally. Tangled up in the aftermath of an explosive assassination, now Ness and the only other survivor—a Nightmare boy who Ness suspects is planning to eat her—must find their way back to Newham and uncover the sinister truth behind the attack, even as the horrors of her past loom ominously near.

©2023 Rebecca Schaeffer (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

Intriguing and fun!

Really good and original story. The narration was great, the pace and plot progression very nicely writen. My only downside was some repetition and slight annoyance with the main character self loathing moments. Did not pull me away luckily! Starting book 2.