---
product_id: 23409003
title: "City of Blades: A Novel (The Divine Cities Book 2)"
brand: "robert jackson bennett"
price: "$38.91"
currency: USD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 7
url: https://www.desertcart.us/products/23409003-city-of-blades-a-novel-the-divine-cities-book-2
store_origin: US
region: United States of America
---

# City of Blades: A Novel (The Divine Cities Book 2)

**Brand:** robert jackson bennett
**Price:** $38.91
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** City of Blades: A Novel (The Divine Cities Book 2) by robert jackson bennett
- **How much does it cost?** $38.91 with free shipping
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## Description

City of Blades: A Novel (The Divine Cities Book 2)

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![City of Blades: A Novel (The Divine Cities Book 2) - Image 1](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51Mz-mY1fyL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    for me, this was better than book one
  

*by S***O on Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2017*

I was actually a lot more into this book, which is the second in the series, than I was in the first.  I think what did it for me were the characters.  I sort of felt like last time, the characters were lists of attributes, but I think they made the leap this time into more complex people.  I would still recommend reading the first book, because there is a lot of worldbuilding going on that forms a useful (and essential) background to what happens in this volume.Please note: There may be some minor spoilers for book one (City of Stairs) in this review.  I'll try to keep them to a minimum.There is a lot of character overlap with book one, but the protagonist is different.  This time, our main POV character is General Turyin Mulaghesh (this is a woman, if you're not familiar with book one).  She spent much of book one pining for retirement on a faraway island, but when we meet her at the beginning of this book, we see retirement was not really agreeing with her.  (We learn that this is a theme in her life.)  There is also an issue with her length of service as it relates to her pension.  So Shara (the heroine of book one, who is now Prime Minister) gets Mulaghesh to come back for a few more months.  (This is a common practice, apparently.)Shara sends Mulaghesh to Voortyashtan, which was formerly the city associated with Voortya, the goddess of death.  A lot is going on.  A new substance has been discovered and there is a mining operation to recover more of it.  A government employee who was investigating this new substance has gone missing.  The harbor is being worked on by a Dreyling (think Nordic types if you want to compare to our world) company under the direction of Signe, one of the daughters of Sigurd (Shara's assistant from book one) and something secretive is going on there.I just like Mulaghesh better than Shara as a POV character, for some reason.  She doesn't know everything, she isn't a young idealist, etc.  (She does exhibit some idealism, and that becomes important later in the book.)  Other characters have appropriate depth for the amount of page time they get.  Sigurd we already know, but he is in a new role here and he is not entirely comfortable with it.  Signe actually gets quite a lot of depth.  Anyway, I really liked the characters here.Once again, the book starts out as a mystery, or at least partly so.  It evolves into several mysteries -- who committed a series of grisly murders, who stole a bunch of explosives, is there anything Divine or otherwise suspicious about the substance being mined, who left evidence of performing what must have been a miracle in the mine (in this instance, "miracle" refers to a ritual associated with one of the Divinities designed to have a specific effect)?  You do get the answers to these questions and more by the end of the book, and I think the answers are set up nicely and with sound bases in the earlier parts of the story (no deus ex machina, in other words).There are those who will argue that the plot is very similar to book one.  They're not exactly wrong, but I found that it was a little bit different, and there is enough *else* going on that you don't always have time to think about that.Some of the themes are the same from book one.  With the Divinities gone, Saypuri technology is expanding and taking over, even on the Continent, and magic or the Divine is receding.  People have to deal with that, including cleverly using technology to overcome unexpected Divine problems.  There is also a fair amount of racism.  Natives are called "Shtanis" and there actually pretty much none of them in the story, only Saypuris and Dreylings.  The characters we do follow view the "Shtanis" with suspicion or outright hostility and suspect them of all manner of horrible things.  In a sense, it's payback -- the Continentals enslaved Saypuri folks not too many generations ago, and prejudice runs deep.  (In the first book, our token Continental character was a member of the elite upper classes.)There is quite a lot of action, including a battle that seems fitting for the end of most books coming about 2/3 through this one.  I thought the pacing was great, building naturally from a slower investigation (complete with roadblocks) to a frantic race to stop an apocalypse.Tone-wise, this is fairly bleak and dark.  I am OK with that but I understand that it will not be for everyone.  It seems a natural progression for the story the author wants to tell, though, and I think it is probably politically realistic.In the end, I thought characterization was much improved from book one.  I like the small details that relate to the transition from a society of magic (essentially) to one of technology.  I liked the relationship between Sigurd and his daughter.  I liked the interrelatedness of all the mysteries and plotlines.  I kept wanting to pick this up and read when I should have been doing other things.  So, despite the similarities in plots of book 1 and book 2, overall I enjoyed this quite a lot.

### ⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    not as good as the 1st
  

*by S***Y on Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2019*

Remember General Mulaghesh, the tough soldier from City of Stairs? Turns out her retirement isn't going so well, she is tortured by PTSD and a guilty conscience of maybe having committed war crimes in her youth. She is missing a purpose. And of course, she's missing a hand.So when a new assignment comes along she begrudgingly accepts it and goes to the port city of Voortyashtan, which at the time of the gods, was ruled by the goddess of war and her terrifying army of Sentinels, people who gave up their whole self to become magical and almost unbeatable soldiers for the promise of an afterlife, where they would wait to come back to the land of the living for a last war that would destroy all humankind.If you read City of Stairs (and you probably should, before reading this), you get an idea of how this is going to go: the protagonist will follow a trail that touches both earthly politics and divine machinations to a final showdown.Maybe the novelty of this fictional world wore down a bit from the 1st book. Maybe there was too much divine and too little real life stuff (I am not a big fan of fantasy, and I positively hate it when magic is used as deus ex machina, that's just lazy writing). Maybe the divine elements weren't as fascinating as those in City of Stairs (a city that exists in 2 different dimensions? Stairs to nowhere? Now that's cool stuff!).In solid Bennet tradition, character development is excellent, the characters are believable and relatable. As a sufferer of PTSD myself, I found Mulaghesh's struggles realistic and I was able to empathize with her.So I didn't hate this book, believe me there's way worse junk out there, god only knows how much garbage I have slogged through because I believed the glowing reviews. I guess Bennet set the bar too high with City of Stairs. I will very probably buy the next in the series, I am just not in a terrible hurry to do so. I remain a fan of Bennet's, I am really happy I discovered this author, and will continue reading his work in the future.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    A brilliant follow-up to City of Stairs
  

*by J***N on Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 6, 2019*

I loved City of Stairs so much that I was itching to pick up the second book in this trilogy as soon as I finished it. When I realised the protagonist of this book was Mulaghesh, one of my favourite characters from City of Stairs, I couldn’t wait to read it.Having served in the military for the majority of her life, Mulaghesh just wants to retire somewhere warm and sunny. At least that’s what she thinks she wants. When she’s asked to work undercover one final time before she can retire at last, Mulaghesh is sent to Voortyashtan, once ruled by the goddess of war, and finds herself facing her own demons and new dangers.Mulaghesh is fantastic. She’s an older woman of colour with a prosthetic limb who isn’t married, doesn’t have children and doesn’t wish she had children. In other words, she’s such a refreshing heroine in the world of high fantasy.Where City of Stairs examined history and who gets to tell the world’s stories, City of Blades is an examination of warfare and the people caught up in it. While we all know that war is bad and not a state that any of us desire, City of Blades doesn’t demonise soldiers at all. In fact Mulaghesh says it best herself: soldiers are there to serve their country and its people, and they don’t do so in the hope that they’ll receive glory. Being a soldier is a thankless job, but Mulaghesh lives for defending the weak and she’s willing to be unpopular for it.I just love her. She’s funny, and not someone you’d want to cross, but under all of that she has a heart of gold and I love her so much. This book was such a joy to read purely and simply because it was a pleasure to follow Mulaghesh, and it just proves how good Bennett is at writing characters that I didn’t miss following Shara.We do get glimpses of Shara, and it was lovely to see her again, as well as Sigrud; I loved Sigrud and Shara’s friendship in the first book, and Mulaghesh and Sigrud’s friendship was so much fun in this book. There are new characters too, such as Signe who I loved, and just like the first book Bennett excelled at writing honest people and writing characters who have to learn to live with the consequences of the mistakes they’ve made.I sped through City of Blades, it was such an easy read, and even though I laughed many times because I adore Mulaghesh’s humour, there were moments that made my heart ache, too. I must admit I didn’t love this book quite as much as City of Stairs, or at least it didn’t blow my mind in the same way the first book did, but considering City of Stairs is one of the best fantasy books I’ve ever read it had quite a pair of shoes to fill and I still loved City of Blades a lot.If you’re a fan of City of Stairs, City of Blades is a brilliant follow-up that’s well worth your time, and if you haven’t read City of Stairs yet… what are you waiting for?

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*Store origin: US*
*Last updated: 2026-02-21*