Crescent City by Sarah J Maas

"There was a wolf at the gallery door."

Bryce Quinlan, a half-human/half-fae citizen of Crescent City, works as an antiquities dealer assistant in a witch's gallery during the day and parties hard with her friends at night (clubs, booze, drugs, the works). One fateful night she comes home to discover her friends murdered in the most gruesome manner, and her life changes dramatically. 

Even though the "culprit" has been "apprehended", two years later someone's body is found in the same way her friends' were and the Archangel and Governor of CC, Micah, asks Bryce to help solve the case together with his personal assassin, Hunt (*sigh*) Athalar. Every new revelation only brings on more questions and doubt about her deceased friends, and unravels a dangerous path that goes much deeper and steeper than they had imagined. 

In this adult fantasy, Maas has amassed all kinds of supernatural creatures, such as Fae, Angels, Shifters, Witches, Vampires, Wraiths, Sprites, you name it, and humans in a contemporary, urban setting and as you can imagine, with this amount of magical beings in one place, there is no shortage of power, beauty (like, everyone is disgustingly gorgeous and smells like a meadow) and shady sh@@ going down, as well as Maas' characters' trademark growls and snarls that we all love. 

Humans and "half-breeds" are derided and mistreated, at the bottom of the pyramid whereas the most powerful, the Archangels, are the ones at the very top who rule the cities.  

One thing I absolutely love about this book, and almost every other S J Maas book, is that we experience the characters' trauma and the process of overcoming it, not in one badass moment as it usually happens in most stories, but through strenuous effort that takes a toll on them, one step at a time, which makes them all the more relatable and dear. Another thing is of course all the epic, cinematic moments that keep replaying in your head, you know, the ones you wish with passion and frustration that the producers won't screw up but convey them immaculately, when Netflix finally decides to make the movies (*siiiiiiiiiiiigh*).

It's also the little things and moments however, like Bryce and Hunt taking silly selfies together, Bryce forcing Hunt to take off his dirty boots in her apartment, Hunt watching sports wearing a cap backwards, Bryce fighting with her pet chimera, Syrinx, because it was scared to walk in the rain, that make these characters and their story jump off the pages and straight into my heart.

My ratings:

Plot: 4/5

Conclusion: 5/5

Characters: 4/5

Movie Potential: 5/5

'Who should play them in the movie' :

Karen Gillan as Bryce Quinlan

Joe Manganiello as Hunt Athalar

Do you agree with my casting? 

Please leave your own suggestions below in the comments.