Black City

Vampires, genetics, dystopia, racism, and star-crossed romance vie for space in Richards’s overstuffed debut, first in a trilogy. In Black City, one of nine megastates in the theocratic United Sentry States, vampiric Darklings live in walled ghettos, segregated from the human population. As a “twin blood”—half Darkling, half human—16-year-old Ash Fisher is an outcast among both peoples, but is drawn to Natalie Buchanan, daughter of the Emissary who heads up Black City. Readers won’t have to try hard to spot the many parallels between the injustices of Ash and Natalie’s world and their own, including forced relocations, crucifixions, and torture, along with allusions to Nazi Germany and the use of the epithet “nipper” for Darklings. Despite initial mutual hostility between Natalie and Ash, their romance is inevitable. However, it gets buried by unwieldy pseudoscience (including plague strains, genetic superpowers, and creatures with too many or too few heartbeats), Darkling lore, religious dogma, and questionable world-building, starting with the atmospheric but inexplicable decision to build a city out of materials that smolder in perpetuity once ignited. Ages 14–up. Agent: Ayesha Pande, Ayesha Pande Literary. (Nov.)