The Sinking City by Christine Cohen
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The Sinking City by Christine Cohen
When I started listening to this book on my Canon+ subscription, I had no idea that it was a YA book. Personally, I love YA books more than any other genre. Young adult books tend to be more exciting, creative, and engaging than adult novels. I find that most YA novels, while written for 13-18 year olds, are much too mature for this age group. This wasn’t so with The Sinking City. This was a fast-paced, clean read that keeps you on the edge of your seat every second.
From the description… “Venice is a carnival of opposites, and Liona Carvatti thinks she understands it all: canal and palace, magician and merchant, plague and pantomime. As a patrician's daughter, Liona enjoys the sparkling life of a noble family--although she would prefer to be tending to her flowers than practicing violin or standing around in a ball gown. But what Liona fails to realize is that Venice is a city of stone in a world of water. And ruling the dark waters are the Seleni--ageless, cold, and calculating.”
Souls will be fed and shaped from the inside out. That much is inescapable.”
Overview
I loved The Sinking City from beginning to end. It’s a stand-alone novel, so there’s no cliff-hanger to worry about here. The Sinking City has just over 30 chapters, and I listened to it almost every night while I made dinner on my Canon+ subscription. You can get the book on CanonPress or on Amazon.
The Sinking City focuses on the life of Liona Carvatti. Liona was sold by her father to the city’s enemy, the Seleni. These creatures, monsters, whatever you want to call them, live in the water and want to use Liona to help them create a new race of their people that can live on land. Unknowingly, Liona was sold by her father to the Seleni when she was a child. Liona fakes her death, and goes on the run in Venice. Unable to leave the city because of a spell, she runs to a magician’s house and becomes a magician’s assistant. Liona eventually falls for another magician’s assistant, learns how to cast spells, and goes head to head with the Seleni.
Obviously, we’re dealing with a book about magic. If that is a concern for you, this book may not be right for your family. However, the “magic” in this book is done in a tasteful way and isn’t anything I personally saw an issue with.
Choen weaves Christianity throughout the book in small ways that I appreciated as a reader. At one point, the main male lead says “as if Calvary never happened”. Sin is also mentioned. We hear of the Saints in the square (statues, landmarks, etc.). With CanonPress being a Christian company, it was exactly what I expected and more from a novel like this.
Points of Concern:
Here are some things that you may want to consider for your child
-Liona fakes her death and steals corpse to put in her place.
-There are a few violent scenes in the book.
-Alchemy and magic are a focal point.
Final Thoughts
I didn’t realize until the book was over that it was a children’s/Young Adult book. I enjoyed it so much! This is a book that parents will definitely enjoy with their kids. If you like audio books, Canon+ has the audio version on the app now. I listened to a few chapters a night while I made dinner, and I found myself wanting to listen more and more the closer it got to the end.
This was a clean book and a great one for young adults and older children. I’ll be picking up Cohen’s other books as well to add to my book collection.
