Red City

By: Marie Lu

Narrated by: André Santana, Eunice Wong, Natalie Naudus, Sid Sagar

The Godfather meets The Magicians in the sweeping adult debut from #1 New York Times bestselling author Marie Lu. Perfect for fans of V.E. Schwab, Red City is a dark and deadly contemporary fantasy of magical warfare, star-crossed ambition, and the pursuit of perfection at any cost, set in a glittering alternate Los Angeles. This program features multicast narration.

Alchemy is the hidden art of transformation. An exclusive power wielded by crime syndicates that market it to the world’s elites in the form of sand, a drug that enhances those who take it into a more perfect version of themselves: more beautiful, more charismatic, simply more.

Among the gleaming skyscrapers and rolling foothills of Angel City, alchemy is controlled by two rival syndicates. For years, Grand Central and Lumines have been balanced on a razor’s edge between polite negotiation and outright violence. But when two childhood friends step into that delicate equation, the city—and the paths of their lives—will be irrevocably transformed.

The daughter of a poor single mother, Sam would do anything to claw her way into the ranks of Grand Central in search of a better life. Plucked away from his family as a boy to become a Lumines apprentice, Ari is one of the syndicates' brightest rising stars. Once, they might have loved each other. But as the two alchemists face off across opposite sides of an ever-escalating conflict, ambition becomes power, loyalty becomes lies, and no transformation may be perfect enough for them both to survive the coming war.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books

Critic reviews

"Red City is a thrilling descent into a seedy underworld of alchemists and arcane-wielding criminal syndicates with ties to the upper echelons of power. Marie Lu has crafted not only a mesmerizing world, but memorable and convincing characters caught up in the machinations of competing crime bosses and assassins vying for control in Angel City. The only thing I wanted when I reached the end of this engrossing book—was more!"—P. Djèlí Clark, author of A Master of Djinn

Praise for Marie Lu:

"Marie Lu always delivers."—#1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo

"Every book she writes is a knockout. Marie Lu is magic."—New York Times bestselling author Tahereh Mafi

"There is no question of Lu's extraordinary literary talent."—Reactor

"What can't Lu do? Her boatloads of fans can't wait to find out."—Booklist

"The kind of all-consuming fantasy novel that pulls you head-first into a brand new world that begins to feel so familiar you can't wait to get your hands on the next one."—New York magazine on Warcross

"Legend doesn't merely survive the hype, it deserves it."—The New York Times

Very astounding performance

I love how evocative the voice actors are. It’s so immersive. I hope they’ll do also the sequels.

Great world building.

I enjoy Marie Lu’s world building and storytelling. This book has themes similar to some of her other stories: power, corruption, secrets, children and the poor being taken advantage of and harmed, star crossed lovers. I enjoyed the book and the ending was satisfying. The violence and torture scenes are not something I enjoyed listening to so this is probably a one and done book for me.

Beautiful voice work and gorgeously written.

Been a Marie Lu fan for years now and it’s so fun having adult books to read now that I’m no longer a younger fan.

The magic system is so unique and interesting, the world building was great too. Anyone who complains about the romantasy aspect of it clearly didn’t look at ANY of the marketing. They made it clear the tropes and the kind of story that would be told. It’s not marketed as a high fantasy adult book.

I don’t actually really like romantasy but the diversity and the way this author is so well written made me fall in love with the story.

A MUST READ. And I hope it’ll get romantasy readers into the fantasy genre more, certain aspects of this book feel very similar to Mistborn.

Wonderful world building and angst, but be aware of grooming

Being an avid fan of alchemy altogether, I absolutely loved the magic systems of this world, how Marie Lu incorporated it with ours. I appreciated the different points of views we got to see, but there should have been a context warning for grooming as I was not a fan of that in the least and was disgusted every time the character was mentioned or there.

This book is Westside Story and Romeo and Juliet with a less tragic ending- and yet still so devastating.

I was immediately taken in by this story- Ari and Sam har such a strong connection and the loneliness they feel is so palpable, so deep, and their friendship is so beautiful.

You can’t help but connect to these two and feel for what they go through. And the manipulation of each of them by the syndicates is just so difficult to see- your heart can’t help but break for their circumstances.

I’m sad it didn’t have a perfectly happy ending, but I love that it’s set up for a potential sequel- I hope to see the both make it out and can finally be together 😭😭