**I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
My Rating: precisely 3.5 stars.
This is a dystopian, post-apocalyptic novel peppered judiciously with elements of magic and mutation. The city is New York rebuilt under a Coalition government, after an extensive nuclear war that burnt the world for 100 years.
Jackson is a full-time businessman and a part-time smuggler, struggling to make decent money, haunted by disturbing dreams and hallucinations of ravens while also is gifted (cursed?) with strange magical powers. Dr. Anna Mathews, who worked in Las Vegas for Falcon, wakes up after 100 years duly recovered from a box located at a cargo site, emitting radioactive energy at alarming rate. The circumstances in which they meet, the mystery shrouding their past and the magical journey they take together forms the rest of the plot.
The book is full of twists with guardians turning perpetrators, foes turning out to be friends lost at childhood, suspects turning to be friends, what sounds real turns out to be hallucination and vice versa. The past of Jackson is exposed a little at a time, his shared past with Tony, what happened to his memories after that, his adoption later and so on are not completely revealed, probably because this is part of the series.
I am not a great fan of Fantasy and Magic, and very few appeal to me, that way this is not my kind of book. After reading almost 15% of the book I had no clue what is happening until Anna turns up and it sort of makes the story interesting.
Jackson doesn’t come across like a strong protagonist (except at one event which I do not want to reveal in my review for fear of spoiler) and that was a big letdown, maybe he will come across as a stronger power in the books to follow. On the contrary Anna acts like she always knew she had these occult powers in her and uses them like a pro. Tony’s story that probably could have been more detailed is not given its due, and ends up a huge disappointment.
