This short novel from Lisa Lueddecke packs a punch well above it's minimal page count. A beautifully crafted treasure-map style adventure story, laced with magic and touched by romance, The City Of Lost Dreamers is brimming with plot twists that lead the story down a path no one would expect.
From the blurb;
'They dreamt of finding another world... and found each other.
'In a city that has been cursed to wander forever, a young girl called Siya accidentally finds the lost pieces of the magical map that would reunite her home with the rest of the world. Fed up of being overlooked as the magic-less daughter of a powerful magician, Siya takes her chance, and with the help pf her worst enemy, Feodor, vows to complete the map and return the city to it's rightful place.
'But with powerful forces threatening, and vampire-like dreygas hunting them down, can Siya and Feodor save their city... and themselves?'
Based souly within the one city with little to no knowledge about the world beyond, it would have been easy for the adventure element of this novel to fall flat, however Lueddecke cleverly intertwines her adventure with magic to craft a captivating tale filled with plot twists and secrets that once uncovered change the course of our main characters lives.
It is easy to fall in love with Siya, well written, intelligent and with a solid bite, Siya is a driven character whose lack of magic places her solidly on the back foot in this magic ruled world she calls home.
Lueddecke gives us the chance to fall in love with Siya before diving into the meat of the tale, but once the story gets going it does not stop to allow readers to catch their breath, jumping from one daring adventure, to another shocking revelation, and into the maws of a life-or-death situation with fluid speed which carries the story up to it's climax with the same building trepidation as a roller coaster before a drop.
Well written characters bring emotional impact to the tale, complicating the already difficult decisions that face our main characters, and as new characters emerge we are forced to question who can truly be trusted and who is hiding behind a nice smile.
The City of Lost Dreamers will leave fans eager for more from Lueddecke, and is the perfect short read of any rainy weekend.
We give The City of Lost Dreamers three stars
ISBN - 978-1-407196-64-0 Cover Price - £7.99
Published in the UK by Scholastic, 2021
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