What do you think of the idea of a sentient city? I don’t mean like cyberspace or AI sentient, but organically sentient: masonry repairs itself, it puts out fires, it repairs ripped up grass...it requires you to inter all bones underneath it with no covering in a labyrinth-like catacombs…

That’s the city of Vaiwyn, built by saints who are now long-gone, and guarded by vesper bells manned since the saints’ departure by the Strauss family. Never once have they slacked in their duties, until one night thirteen tolls ring out from one of the bells and unleash what the saints had trapped inside. 

What Wakes the Bells was less dark than I was hoping, but it was still an enjoyable book. I love the concept of a sentient city that isn’t sentient by some futuristic means. I’d read a whole book just about a sentient city. That aspect of this book didn’t get as much attention as I wanted, but that’s because it had other matters to attend to, so that’s okay. It also had an interesting take on saints and how they develop and the roles they play in the world of this book that I found really fascinating and would’ve liked to learn more about. I also enjoyed the world itself, which is very reminiscent of Prague (of course it is) and happens to be one of my favorite settings for fantasy novels. 

So, what’s missing? The characters. The characters just weren’t clicking for me. I wish I could have dialed in more to who they were, what they were going through, and become more invested in what happened to them, but I ended up forgetting about half of them most of the time. In my opinion, the B cast was too large for a book with this many moving parts. It ended up crowding space the book needed for other matters. 4⭐️

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Action Adventure/Dark Fantasy/Fantasy/Romantasy/Standalone Fantasy Novel/Standalone Novel/YA Fantasy/YA Romantasy/YA Fiction