Book Review: City of Gods and Monsters by Kayla Edwards

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I’ve been chasing a very specific reading high: an urban fantasy city that actually feels dangerous. Crescent City promised me that and, for my money, fumbled it. City of Gods and Monsters is the book that pulled it off — monsters, witches, and supernatural power games in a city where the threats feel like residents instead of props.

The spoiler-free setup: Loren Calla is a human trying to stay alive in Angelthene, a city teeming with werewolves, vampires, and creatures without tidy names. When she crosses paths with Darien Cassel, head of the House of Devils, she’s pulled into the city’s dark underbelly to chase the truth and protect the people she loves. It’s a world adjacent to our own, which I found refreshing after a long run of secondary-world fantasy on my Kindle.

What I Loved About City of Gods and Monsters by Kayla Edwards

Angelthene itself, and how fully Kayla Edwards commits to it. The prose is fun, most of the central cast is well drawn, and Darien Cassel is the standout — he gets a specificity a lot of romantasy male leads never receive. The stakes are real and city-shaped: this is urban fantasy where the urban is a load-bearing wall, not a coat of paint.

What I Didn’t Love About City of Gods and Monsters

The plot. It flags in the middle, meanders more than it should, and leans on what I can only call errand-running — characters going places and fetching things instead of making hard decisions born of their flaws. (The strongest plots are character decisions in a trench coat. This one is sometimes a to-do list in a trench coat.) The twists didn’t surprise me, and a few dialogue beats read younger than the book around them.

Final Thoughts on City of Gods and Monsters

Worth a read if urban romantasy is your lane — I had a genuinely fun time, and the series continues with City of Souls and Sinners and City of Lies and Legends (reviews of both are on the shelf). It’s on Kindle Unlimited and made my best-of-KU romantasy list, flaws disclosed and all.

My final score: 3 out of 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Spice rating: 3 out of 5 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ (and it gets spicier as the series goes on)

Do I recommend this book? 👍 Yes — for anyone who likes their monsters metropolitan.

🔥 A Deadly Trials Romantasy on Kindle Unlimited: The Ash Trials

Saffron Vale wakes in a ruined wedding dress, locked in a prison for the kingdom’s deadliest criminals — with no memory of who she is.

To survive the brutal Ash Trials, she must outlast shifters, spellcasters, and something even more dangerous: the truth about herself. Her only allies? A traitorous commander from her past and an assassin who swears she’s the real monster here.

The truth could save her — or destroy everything.

Get the book now on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited: