A dark and tender post-apocalyptic love story set in the aftermath of a bloody war.

In a city where humans and Darklings are now separated by a high wall and tensions between the two races still simmer after a terrible war, sixteen-year-old Ash Fisher, a half-blood Darkling, and Natalie Buchanan, a human and the daughter of the Emissary, meet and do the unthinkable—they fall in love. Bonded by a mysterious connection that causes Ash’s long-dormant heart to beat, Ash and Natalie first deny and then struggle to fight their forbidden feelings for each other, knowing if they’re caught, they’ll be executed—but their feelings are too strong.

When Ash and Natalie then find themselves at the center of a deadly conspiracy that threatens to pull the humans and Darklings back into war, they must make hard choices that could result in both their deaths.                                                                             
                                                                                                                                         -  http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12568505-black-city                













Non-Spoiler: I gave Black City a 3.5 out of 5 stars because it wasn't a terrible book by any means, but it certainly had its problems. The beginning of the book is really intriguing, and it lays the ground work for a lot of mysteries and secrets that are revealed throughout the novel. Although the first 70 pages or so are very promising, the book starts to become cheesier and more predictable. Characters lose their wit and sense, and are just completely eye-roll worthy. Around the last fourth of the book, things start to really happen! You realize why you liked the characters in the first place, and you really begin to see all the puzzle pieces come together. Shocking information is revealed, and the events that occur left me at a loss for words. I hope that Elizabeth Richards carries this momentum into the next two books, so that my experience with them can be just as fantastic as the last 100 pages of Black City. I would recommend this book to fans of dystopian novels because I think that this world is really different from a lot of other books out there. It may just be me, but I haven't read a book set up like this before! 

Ash was definitely a favorite of mine for the first 50 pages, but has soon as he accepted that he had the slightest feelings for Natalie, he became a love-struck idiot, which is not something that suited him very well. I had a completely different opinion of Natalie. She was just a 'Sentry brat' as Beetle and Ash would say. Through out the book, she gained some more common sense and even attempted to sacrifice her life to save Ash at the end of the book(definitely a mark in the plus column). Even though I was totally supportive of the relationship between Ash and Natalie, this book had a serious case of insta-love. This whole book took place over the course of about three or four weeks. That is not a realistic time span for a romantic relationship or even a friendship, like Day and Natalie. That was another relationship that I didn't initially have a problem with, but I did start to seem some flaws in towards the middle of the book. When Day and Beetle caught Ash and Natalie kissing, I thought the fight between Day and Natalie was extremely dramatic. My opinion was only strengthened when Natalie mentioned that she had only met Ash under the bridge a few weeks prior, which means she had known Day for an even shorter amount of time! Beetle and Ash's friendship however, seemed to be very well developed and provided some pretty witty banter at times. The two definitely had some reoccurring arguments that I thought would eventually have larger consequences, but by the end of Black City, the longest they had gone without speaking to each other seemed to only be a couple of days. In this first book, we also learned a lot about the politics of Black City and the other 8 towns. Especially they're leader, Purian Rose. Purian Rose is essentially a dictator. He easily controls the nine Emissaries, and now he even has his own religion. He reminds me a lot of President Snow from the Hunger Games actually, even if it's only cause his last name is Rose. Natalie's sister, Polly, is another character with a very interesting back story. She was tortured by Purian Rose because her father had chosen to help the Darklings after he learned where Purian Rose was sending them. Natalie's mother had chosen to let Rose torture Polly instead of Natalie because she hoped to blackmail Rose by revealing that Polly was actually his daughter, which I thought was a very risky, yet very political, move of her to make. Natalie's mother's relationship with Rose opens a whole new door to more twisted secrets that we, hopefully, get to explore in Phoenix, the next book. Moving on from characters and into the actual plot. 
It's impossible to deny that the idea of Ash and Natalie being Blood Mates is exceptionally cheesy. It definitely had a few plot holes as well. For one thing, Natalie was a human. That alone made the whole thing very unbelievable. Although Ash did think that it was surprising that she was human and his Blood Mate, he didn't think anything else about it. Also, the way that Ash explained the whole myth behind Blood Mates to Natalie seemed very sudden and random. He didn't seem to have any thought process behind it. Natalie's acceptance of the whole thing was also a little weird to me. If some half-demon boy told me that we were Blood Mates, I would be quite startled. Later on in the story, we do of course learn that the heart that Natalie received for her heart transplant came from another twin-blood named Evangeline. When we were first introduced to Evangeline I thought she was very cool, and I actually preferred her and Ash as a couple versus Ash and Natalie, but as soon as it is revealed that she is Ash's TRUE Blood Mate, Evangeline's character turns out to be more of a villain than we thought. She tells Natalie that she was the one who killed Malcolm and Truffles. Evangeline also threatens to kill Polly, but Natalie persuades her not to. It was also a huge coincidence that Ash's mom acted as a mother figure for Evangeline, and Evangeline was actually there when his mom was originally infected by the Wrath. 
Since this section of my review was more of a discussion, I would like to wrap it up by sharing some of my theories for the next books with you guys. Of course, they are already released, so I would prefer it if nobody left spoilers in the comments of this post.