Reg Thursday, a struggling musician, stumbles into a world full of magic. His journey is down to earth but also amazing in that you get the privilege of watching a hidden world in the Denver metropolitan area reveal itself through well-crafted world building. The characters are deep and distinctive, and you'll find yourself rooting for the multi-faceted main cast. Blakemore's descriptions are plentiful and beautiful, the prose as inviting as it is unique.

I recommend City Song to anyone who enjoys urban fantasy with great attention to detail and magic systems that lean heavily on music and rhythm.

Mayflies offers a nostalgic look at friendship and the memories we hold onto well into adulthood.

Though I enjoyed the setting of the first half of the novel and felt the dynamic between friends was realistic, I ultimately found I didn’t feel an emotional pull toward anyone — especially Tully. As the book centers around Tully specifically, this meant I didn’t care much about the latter half of the novel and was mostly waiting for compelling character arcs that never came. It seemed that, apart from what little was offered in the first half of the book, I knew nothing about Tully and found myself waiting for the book to reach its conclusion.

Overall, I thought the prose was fun and the setting interesting. I just didn’t care about the characters because they weren’t fleshed out enough.