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Secrets of the CitySpire, Book 1 - A Familiar Love Song
 
 

Secrets of the CitySpire, Book 1 - A Familiar Love Song [Kindle Edition]

Nathan Reese Maher
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Product Description

Product Description

"Call me crazy, but there is something terribly wrong with this city."

The CitySpire, a city with monolithic skyscrapers, flawless streets and endless boulevards rests in the middle of the sea. It is an island that waits both quiet and vacant. Its single inhabitant wakes unfamiliar to his surroundings, his memory as thick as the fog that occasionally rises from the city sewers, with only a single card to greet him, “You are Samuel Bell.”

Alone he wanders the CitySpire, lost in the miasma of the surreal. He is drawn by a figment, the sound of footsteps and the occasional shadow. Are they real or are they ghosts from the past? Streets change and some disappear entirely. Is the city alive? Is it enchanted? And why can he not shake the ever-present feeling of being stalked?

"Three times and then declines forever."

Samuel is beset by a phantom woman, a spectre he believes to be his lost love. Rachel calls to him, yet she speaks in riddles, and no matter how hard he tries he cannot shake free the cobwebs in his head. One thing is for certain, she holds the key to unlocking his past.

On one of his trips to the island’s pier, he encounters a battered figure along the shoal. After nursing her back to health, Samuel learns that the self-named Emily Waters suffers as he and knows far less about the island or how they may have arrived. Together they embark on a powerful journey to learn the island’s secrets. In their travels, they meet the Lockes, a couple who exude the presence of high-class, but what hides behind Michael’s gentry smile and Natalie’s flirtatious charm?

When Emily professes her love for Samuel, he must make a decision of whether to abandon his pursuit for Rachel and return her affections, or turn Emily aside completely.

"We are all subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated you of this island."

A monstrous creature crawls from out of the darkest recess of the CitySpire and stalks the newly-acquainted friends. He calls himself Count Champ de Croix, the true owner of the city and imparts his gruesome laws. Those who find themselves in violation are issued a death sentence. When more people arrive in the CitySpire, Samuel learns the true extent of the Count’s laws when violators are skinned alive and left to hang from lampposts as a future warning.

With more people, each bringing a figment of innovation and ideas, the CitySpire evolves and twists to encompass a more technologically equipped world. From flying cars to electromagnetic weaponry, science advances. Yet no matter how hard the inhabitants strive to peek beneath the veil of the unknown, the city’s magic only becomes stronger and more elusive.

But an even greater danger threatens the CitySpire, one more cruel and frightening than the Count himself. Samuel takes on the role of defender, and with the aid of his friends must fight against the evil. It is the same threat that leads him to unveil one of the CitySpire’s greatest secret. Will Samuel persevere or will its discovery consume him?

Find out in, “Secrets of the CitySpire, Book 1 – A Familiar Love Song”.

“Secrets of the CitySpire” is a gothic sci-fi novel that is influenced by the poems of Emily Dickinson and inspired by science fiction writer, Phillip K. Dick. It is a modernization of Shakespeare’s infamous play, “The Tempest” and complimented by 18th and 19th century style of writing from classical writers such as Jane Austen, Horace Walpole, Clara Reeve and Mary Shelly.

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 944 KB
  • Print Length: 386 pages
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B004LLID9Y
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray: Not Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars A dark place 4 July 2011
Format:Kindle Edition
Secrets of the CitySpire
By Nathan Reece Maher

This book is a modern masterpiece. It's starts with Mr Bell the central character awakening from what appears to be a bomb blast. He has some memory of his life before the blast but it's all reminiscent and vague this failure to recognise this new reality he finds himself in and the failings of his memory is the foundation of the horror.

The book starts by describing the magical half real, half dream world that is the CitySpire.. I don't know if the author has ever recovered from a bomb blast or a serious car accident, (I have) and I can tell you he has a good idea of how the post traumatic mind sees the world. Food taste differently, colours seem duller, the fear is turned up to 11. The author has done a good job here. The book is well written, if he has written this entirely from imagination it's amazing..

The CitySpire is no ordinary place, the maker of this world is a dark God. I loved this part of the book because the CitySpire is hard to imagine, the tall buildings the ever-present menace. This aspect of his state of mind is complicated because this fear is not entirely irrational, there is someone watching him, there is real danger hunting him. In the first chapter of the book Mr Bell (love the name in the understated context of this story) meets up with his soul mate Emily. But we experience the CitySpire and this love affair with Emily through Mr Bell's apparently paranoid eyes we can feel his pain and empathise with his post traumatic phobic state of mind....his world, and what a world.

I love the language used to describe the mood, the feel of the place, the desolate oppressive buildings, the emptiness that pervades the CitySpire. The rich use of adjectives, you ask the question is this a real place? is Mr Bell still in a coma? This is a nightmare world. The love story is set in this nightmare world. I liked this aspect of the book not everyone will... but I did. The mind is at it's most vulnerable when in recover mode after a trauma. But the CitySpire is a magical place, the love story is romantic and frantic, the book is a puzzle, the plot is elusive, the si-fi springs out of this nightmare and distracts your then reminds you this is not an ordinary place.

But for me the physiological horror is the best bit, and horror is a potent mental poison. Without solid memory and certainty the mind turns to a quivering jelly of fear. The love affair with Emily moderates Mr Bell's fear, but it's still there. I have read then I have re read this book a numbers of times. It's huge at 200,000 words.

Mixed genre is not for everyone, but I guarantee the writing is top quality and I predicted one day this book will be a best seller or rather I should say it should be. The world is dumbing down and few people can read a large book like this and enjoy it. But it's worth the effort.

The CitySpire is a fantastic imaginative world a phobic state of mind that you may well... one day... find yourselves in. A very strange place to fall in love. The book is highly recommended.

Paul Kendall Yorkshire UK
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com: 4.7 out of 5 stars  3 reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A dark place 4 July 2011
By Paul Kendall - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Secrets of the CitySpire
By Nathan Reece Maher

This book is a modern masterpiece. It's starts with Mr Bell the central character awakening from what appears to be a bomb blast. He has some memory of his life before the blast but it's all reminiscent and vague this failure to recognise this new reality he finds himself in and the failings of his memory is the foundation of the horror.

The book starts by describing the magical half real, half dream world that is the CitySpire.. I don't know if the author has ever recovered from a bomb blast or a serious car accident, (I have) and I can tell you he has a good idea of how the post traumatic mind sees the world. Food taste differently, colours seem duller, the fear is turned up to 11. The author has done a good job here. The book is well written, if he has written this entirely from imagination it's amazing..

The CitySpire is no ordinary place, the maker of this world is a dark God. I loved this part of the book because the CitySpire is hard to imagine, the tall buildings the ever-present menace. This aspect of his state of mind is complicated because this fear is not entirely irrational, there is someone watching him, there is real danger hunting him. In the first chapter of the book Mr Bell (love the name in the understated context of this story) meets up with his soul mate Emily. But we experience the CitySpire and this love affair with Emily through Mr Bell's apparently paranoid eyes we can feel his pain and empathise with his post traumatic phobic state of mind....his world, and what a world.

I love the language used to describe the mood, the feel of the place, the desolate oppressive buildings, the emptiness that pervades the CitySpire. The rich use of adjectives, you ask the question is this a real place? is Mr Bell still in a coma? This is a nightmare world. The love story is set in this nightmare world. I liked this aspect of the book not everyone will... but I did. The mind is at it's most vulnerable when in recover mode after a trauma. But the CitySpire is a magical place, the love story is romantic and frantic, the book is a puzzle, the plot is elusive, the si-fi springs out of this nightmare and distracts your then reminds you this is not an ordinary place.

But for me the physiological horror is the best bit, and horror is a potent mental poison. Without solid memory and certainty the mind turns to a quivering jelly of fear. The love affair with Emily moderates Mr Bell's fear, but it's still there. I have read then I have re read this book a numbers of times. It's huge at 200,000 words.

Mixed genre is not for everyone, but I guarantee the writing is top quality and I predicted one day this book will be a best seller or rather I should say it should be. The world is dumbing down and few people can read a large book like this and enjoy it. But it's worth the effort.

The CitySpire is a fantastic imaginative world a phobic state of mind that you may well... one day... find yourselves in. A very strange place to fall in love. The book is highly recommended.

Paul Kendall Yorkshire UK
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating story 3 July 2011
By William Smead - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Kindle Edition
This book is one of those that you hate to put down. The story moves right along, it doesn't get bogged down in elaborate scene discriptions. It's a story about people and their adventures not places. The characters are very well developed. I can't wait to see what happens in book 2.
4.0 out of 5 stars Dreamy 24 Aug 2012
By pat1360 - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Kindle Edition
The beginning of Secrets of the Cityspire reminds me of a dream-vivid yet not quite real. The city itself becomes a character of the novel, ever changing and impacting Bell and his friends. The story slowly builds, and this volume ends with lots of action. I felt I knew Bell, but the other characters drift in and out of Bell's life. I found the ending unsatisfactory (I prefer stand-alone novels), but clearly sets up a sequel. Still a lot of unanswered questions, which also adds to the dream-like tone of the book. I received a complimentary copy of this book in order to review it.
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