CITY OF NIGHTMARES

A girl who escapes being collateral damage in an attack must face her overwhelming fears.

In the fictional city of Newham, bribes, shootouts, and corruption are widespread, and the water supply is laced with a drug that keeps people from dreaming so that they don’t wake up transformed into the worst thing they can imagine. Ness came to Newham after her older sister turned into a giant spider and ate their father. To avoid becoming homeless, she works for the Friends of the Restful Soul, though she’s always messing up due to her lack of piety and extreme fear trauma responses to Nightmares. With her position already in jeopardy, she ends up accidentally sucked into a targeted conspiracy that throws her together with a living Nightmare. Ness must then figure out the secrets people are willing to kill her to keep hidden. The worldbuilding’s a dream: The magical rules are revealed clearly and concisely when relevant, and the quirky alternate setting maintains internal consistency and is frequently revealed in pithy, hilarious ways. The matter-of-fact tone of the humor effectively keeps the laughs from undermining the scary story elements. Ness’ development from being a self-described coward is hard earned and connects to powerful themes of relationships (including friendships) and overcoming manipulation. While immediate threats are neutralized by the end, bigger threats loom. The cosmopolitan world is casually and naturally diverse; Ness lacks racial descriptors.

So much fun readers will stay up all night to finish it.