What I’m Reading: City of End

Today I have the pleasure of reviewing a book by a local (to me) author, City of End, by Katelyn Pfeiffer. Katelyn lives in Manassas, Virginia, not far from me, and a good friend who met her at a book signing recommended this book to me.

Aoire is eighteen, and she and her best friend, Collette, will soon have to report to the Nest on Collection Day. Collection Day is an annual holiday in the underground city of End, and the Nest is the huge garden and temple at the center of the city that regular people aren’t allowed to visit. On Collection Day, all the young women of age gather at the Nest where the head priestess, the Amesi, takes them and they disappear for a year for the Program. What happens to the women during the Program? Nobody knows–not even the older women who’ve been through it, because they can’t remember. And if they try hard to dredge up the memories, they have traumatic responses, so mostly they don’t try at all.

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Aoire has a secret though. Her foster mother makes her cover her head, for she has blazing red hair, unheard of among the dark-haired Endians. Moreover, the hair seems to be connected to her Gift, an ability to heal others, to make herself unseen, even to manipulate objects around her just with her thoughts. Her foster mother makes her hide her Gift, as well.

Aoire believes that with her Gift, she’ll be able to protect herself at the Nest during the year of her disappearance. Her plan is to find out what happens to the women during the Program and when she’s released at the end of the year, let the rest of the city know, for good or ill.

But on the day before Collection Day, she has two encounters that upset her plan. The first is with a Basher, the vampire-like beings that prey on Endians, and that the guards of the Protectorate can’t protect the city from. She manages to defeat the Basher and heals a little girl who the Basher had nearly killed. But lots of people are around, and now her hair and her Gift are public knowledge.

The second is with a mysterious man in a forest outside the city. The man is handsome but unnerving, and seems to know all about Aoire and her background. He warns her that the Program is nothing she wants to experience and suggests she go with him instead of reporting to the Nest the next day. When she refuses, he touches her hand and she falls asleep. When she awakens, the man is gone, and she finds that she can no longer access her Gift. What’s more, it’s morning, and she’s late for reporting.

When she gets to the Nest, her late arrival and shocking red hair disrupt the ceremony. Now she’s on the bad side of the Amesi, she no longer has her Gift, and she’s about to find out just what happens to the young women during the Program. Will she remember at the end of the year? Or will she even survive?

City of End is definitely a page turner, and though it’s set in the far future, and the city of End is underground because there’s been some sort of nuclear disaster, it reads to me a lot more like fantasy, with its vampire-like Bashers, magic healing powers, and mysterious demonic men in forests. There’s even a wizard-like character named Gammel who shows up to give advice to Aiore every once in a while. I did find characters other than Aoire to be thinly drawn, but for readers who enjoy a fast-paced fantasy book with lots of twists, City of End will be exactly what you’re looking for.