20 upcoming YA books we can’t wait to read in 2020
By Lacy Baugher
We just got off the phone with @FFloresAuthor and we’re not kidding when we say we love DIAMOND CITY! We’re so excited for everyone to read it in January!#diamondcitybook pic.twitter.com/Ayay6igKWf
— Wednesday Books (@WednesdayBooks) October 10, 2019
Diamond City – Francesca Flores
Francesca Flores’ fantasy debut is an entertaining tale of assassins, magic and, yes, literal diamonds. Diamond City follows the story of eighteen-year old orphan Aina Solis, who grew up on the streets of Kosín, a city full of diamond minds.
Now a skilled assassin in “Blood King” Kohl Pavel’s tradehouse, she’s given an impossible job: Kill a high-profile diamond trader. If she’s successful, her mission will make her enough money to bankroll her own tradehouse. If she’s not…well, she probably won’t live to see what happens next. (Particularly once a bounty is placed on her head by various parties, including her own boss.)
The situation is made even more complicated by the fact that, in this universe, diamonds are used to perform a complicated form of blood magic, which is both dark and extremely forbidden.
The official synopsis is vague, but certainly feels dangerous and foreboding.
"Fierce and ambitious, Aina Solís as sharp as her blade and as mysterious as the blood magic she protects. After the murder of her parents, Aina takes a job as an assassin to survive and finds a new family in those like her: the unwanted and forgotten. Her boss is brutal and cold, with a questionable sense of morality, but he provides a place for people with nowhere else to go. And makes sure they stay there. DIAMOND CITY: built by magic, ruled by tyrants, and in desperate need of saving. It is a world full of dark forces and hidden agendas, old rivalries and lethal new enemies. To claim a future for herself in a world that doesn’t want her to survive, Aina will have to win a game of murder and conspiracy—and risk losing everything"
Diamond City is available on January 28.