A sassy bisexual pacifist empath and a Southern-accented mysterious empath “specialist” work together to solve a brutal high-profile murder. Allie Therin does it again making me fall in love with her characters and world.
Title: Liar City (Sugar & Vice #1)
Author: Allie Therin
Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, LGBTQ+
Pub Date: February 28, 2023
Publisher: Carina Adores
Content Warnings: Panic Attacks, Xenophobia, Murder, Gun Violence, Mind Control
Thank you NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the review copy.
★★★★★
A murder has Seattle on edge, and it falls to a pacifist empath—and a notorious empath hunter—to find the killer before it’s too late
It’s the middle of the night when part-time police consultant and full-time empath Reece gets an anonymous call warning him that his detective sister needs his help. At an out-of-the-way Seattle marina, he discovers that three people have been butchered—including the author of the country’s strictest anti-empathy bill, which is just days from being passed into law.
Soon, Reece’s caller arrives: a shadowy government agent known as The Dead Man, who is rumored to deal exclusively in cases involving empathy. He immediately takes over the investigation, locking out both local PD and the FBI, but, strangely, keeps Reece by his side.
As the two track an ever-growing trail of violence and destruction across Seattle, Reece must navigate a scared and angry city, an irritating attraction to his mysterious agent companion, and a rising fear that perhaps empaths like him aren’t all flight and no fight after all…
I absolutely love Therin’s debut series Magic in Manhattan, 1920s queer historical fantasy romance, and its ongoing spin-off, Roaring Twenties Magic, and was thrilled when I saw the deal announcement for a brand new trilogy. Liar City is an urban fantasy mystery/suspense with a slow burn romantic subplot but retains all the things I love about Therin’s category romances, including: amazing cast of diverse characters; spunky, vulnerable and always growing protagonists; fluid blend of the fantastical with reality and amazing world building; intriguing layered mysteries, and sweet, high chemistry romances and just as strong and prevalent platonic and familial relationships.
We go through a few different POVs but of course I have my favorites: our main boy Reece because I love Therin’s main characters, and I also loved his sister Jamey. All the POVs worked well in terms of developing characters and the main whodunit mystery as well as the overarching plotline that I anticipate will run through the rest of the series.
I love Reece. Would die for him. Sassy and sarcastic with a mouth that gets him in trouble, and, as one character says, snack-sized. He’s a fun POV character and primary protagonist. His weaknesses and strengths are laid out and developed well already and he fits in the urban fantasy world Therin’s created. I really loved how she plays with perceptions of empathy/pacifism.
If you love banter, there is plenty of that between Reece and Grayson. Between Reece’s uncontrollable mouth and Grayson’s dry drawls there are plenty of great interactions that leaven tense scenes and plot developments and forge their developing slow burn romance. There’s a bit of a running gag that is well executed for what I found to be a surprising but great payoff that had an effect on the character, other people’s perception of that character, and the role of people like that character in this world.
I need the next book, heck, the rest of the series and anything else Allie Therin’s got in her magic writer brain ASAP.
Bonus: Sometimes I try and be funny on Twitter.
escapistlit 