Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr

Summary from Goodreads

In a city of daimons, rigid class lines separate the powerful from the power-hungry. And at the heart of The City is the Carnival of Souls, where both murder and pleasure are offered up for sale. Once in a generation, the carnival hosts a deadly competition that allows every daimon a chance to join the ruling elite. Without the competition, Aya and Kaleb would both face bleak futures--if for different reasons. For each of them, fighting to the death is the only way to try to live.

All Mallory knows of The City is that her father--and every other witch there--fled it for a life in exile in the human world. Instead of a typical teenage life full of friends and maybe even a little romance, Mallory scans quiet streets for threats, hides herself away, and trains to be lethal. She knows it's only a matter of time until a daimon finds her and her father, so she readies herself for the inevitable. While Mallory possesses little knowledge of The City, every inhabitant of The City knows of her. There are plans for Mallory, and soon she, too, will be drawn into the decadence and danger that is the Carnival of Souls.

From Melissa Marr, bestselling author of the Wicked Lovely series and "Graveminder," comes a brand-new tale of lush secrets, dark love, and the struggle to forge one's own destiny.

Paperback, 306 pages

Published September 4th 2012 by HarperCollins UK
 

My Review
 

Melissa Marr is one of my favourite authors, I absolutely love Graveminder and The Wicked Lovely series is amazing, so I was very excited about starting Carnival of Souls. Although I didn't quite enjoy it as much as some of Melissa's other works, I still think it is a fantastic first book in a very exciting new series! I found Carnival of Souls a little hard to get into and I think mainly it was because of the amount of information it takes to build such an in-depth, complex world and really no-one builds worlds quite like Melissa Marr. I also think there were too many characters threw at the reader at once and it was hard to get a proper read on them until the later stages of the book. The writing is great as I have come to expect from the author and I love the dark, dangerous world created here. The storyline is excitingly action packed and it has been set up brilliantly for things to come in future books and personally I just can't wait.

In a place called 'The City' where Daimons live in their social classes and witches are banned, there is a competition that takes place where anyone can battle it out for the chance to join the ruling class - The Elite! Aya is part of the ruling class and the only girl to ever take part, Kaleb is of the lowest caste and he is battling to make a name for himself and move up the ranks. The contest is a brutal fight to the death match where only the strongest survive. Aya and Kaleb are forced to work together for very different goals of their own!

 Mallory lives in the human world with her step-father Adam who is a witch. She doesn't know too much about The City but she knows of Daimons, has been taught to fear them, she has also been trained to fight them. But when a Daimon walks into her life she is forced to see things differently. She will be thrown into the dark and highly dangerous Carnival of Souls...

 

Mallory will learn that the things she has always been told about life aren't to be taken as truths and she will need to make her own mind up about things. Aya is my favourite character, she is very intriguing and a little hard to fully get to know, I think she has plenty of secrets yet to be revealed. The ending is fab and has left me dying to know whats in store for this odd collection of characters next!
 

4/5 Stars
 

*Special thanks to Harper Collins for the review copy*
 

Carly