Review: City in Embers by Stacey Marie Brown

Title: City in Embers
By: Stacey Marie Brown
Series: Collectors #1
My Copy: Ebook for Honest Review
BookWhisperer Rating:


Zoey Daniels has been tossed from foster home to foster home, where she grows up fast and tough. When she is placed in her “last-chance” home, she finds a reason to stay and turn her life around: her foster sister, Lexie, who is paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. Zoey will do anything to keep her safe. After high school, Zoey is hired by a special government agency, the Department of Molecular Genetics (DMG), where she meets the other reason to remain: Daniel, her co-worker. The man she loves.

But there is something unique about Zoey. She can see fae. Because of this, the DMG hires her to work as a Collector: catching, researching, testing, and using the fae to save human lives. The work never registers on her sympathy radar. She was raised to think of fae as beasts that feed on humans and want to destroy them.

When devastation hits Seattle, Zoey's whole world is turned upside down. The electric storm connects her to a ruthless fae, a Wanderer named Ryker, whose dealings expose them to even more trouble and danger. They embark on a journey, running and hiding from both the government and fae, both of which threaten their lives and those they love. 

City in Embers will be that book of 2015 to which I compare all others. This is a debut novel for The Collector's series that can be shortly summarized in a paranormal novel about human Collectors and the Fae. Zoey is an amazing character packed full of spice and vinegar. Having learned to be a survivor at a young age she is a force to be reckoned with. There are two other main characters, but this was a unique twist that had us following a main character about half way through, and then it switches up on us. I was not quite sure what to think of this at the moment, but as the story builds and familiarity increases in the second half I was fully supportive. I think this was essential to building this story so creatively, and I think it was excellent risk to take. The conclusion definitely full the remaining holes, and solidify the story line in detail. It has been a very long time since I delved into a paranormal novel that builds a story for the ages, and leaves me anticipating a series that will most likely cover many installments. I see the web of framework that this one powerful novel as spread, and I am so thrilled to see where it will go. Ryker and Zoey definitely have the friction that leaves us eager for more, but be aware it will not happen here. While I can always enjoy a nice smutty book this is not one of them. This is not just a story it is an adventure, or better yet an alternate reality for readers. Packed full of fascinating characters and side lined with this invigorating story line this series is not a choice, but an addiction you must explore. Stacey Marie is not an author that I am familiar with, but she most definitely made her mark. I see that she has some other series, and it will be my mission to read them as well. If her other works prove as successful as this experience she will be my new favorite. It has been a long time coming, but talented work such as this are rare. Not everyone can create stories of such perfection.