Week 28 Reviews: Winterbay, Midnight City, The Severed Tower, Valley of Fires

From Goodreads:
Mira Toombs has fled Midnight City, leaving behind her home and the people she loves in a desperate gamble to repair the damage her Tone enhancing artifact has caused. It is a journey that will lead her to Winterbay, an infamous, frozen city built in the middle of Lake Michigan. A place of secrets and conspiracies – and the one place more dangerous for Mira than Midnight City. Winterbay is the last bastion of the World Before, a place that has shunned the power of the Strange Lands, and where being a Freebooter means the death sentence.

To get what she needs, Mira must take a desperate bargain. One that will lead her into the city's icy depths, where its greatest and most dangerous secret lies guarded by a massive, deadly machine that rumor and myth say only one person can disarm. The one person not allowed inside the city walls.

A Freebooter.

From Goodreads:
Earth has been conquered by an alien race known as the Assembly. The human adult population is gone, having succumbed to the Tone---a powerful, telepathic super-signal broadcast across the planet that reduces them to a state of complete subservience. But the Tone has one critical flaw. It only affects the population once they reach their early twenties, which means that there is one group left to resist: Children.

Holt Hawkins is a bounty hunter, and his current target is Mira Toombs, an infamous treasure seeker with a price on her head. It’s not long before Holt bags his prey, but their instant connection isn't something he bargained for. Neither is the Assembly ship that crash-lands near them shortly after. Venturing inside, Holt finds a young girl who remembers nothing except her name: Zoey.

As the three make their way to the cavernous metropolis of Midnight City, they encounter young freedom fighters, mutants, otherworldly artifacts, pirates, feuding alien armies, and the amazing powers that Zoey is beginning to exhibit. Powers that suggest she, as impossible as it seems, may just be the key to stopping the Assembly once and for all. 

From Goodreads:
Holt, Mira, and Max have fled Midnight City with Zoey after watching her repel an entire Assembly army. Zoey's powers are unlocked, but who and what she is remains a mystery. All she knows is that she must reach the Severed Tower, an infamous location in the middle of the world's most dangerous landscape: The Strange Lands, a place where the laws of physics have completely broken down. But the closer they get to the Tower, the more precarious things become. The Assembly has pursued Zoey into the Strange Lands. Among them is a new group, their walkers and machines strangely bereft of any color, stripped to bare metal, and whose agenda seems to differ from the rest. To make matters worse, the group hunting Holt are here, too, led by a dangerous and beautiful pirate named Ravan. So is Mira's first love, Benjamin Aubertine, whose singular ambition to reach the Tower threatens to get them all killed.

Then there's the Strange Lands themselves. They have inexplicably begun to grow, spreading outwards, becoming more powerful. Somehow, it all seems tied to Zoey herself, and the closer she gets to the Tower, the weaker she becomes.

From Goodreads:
The sci-fi tour de force series set in an alien-invaded post-apocalyptic world concludes as the teens must unite Earth’s disparate survivors to overthrow its alien invaders once and for all.

Earth has been conquered by an alien race known as the Assembly. The human adult population is gone, having succumbed to the Tone—a powerful, telepathic super-signal broadcast across the planet that reduces them to a state of complete subservience. But the Tone only affects the population once they reach their early twenties. Which means that there is one group left to resist: Children. In Valley of Fires the trio of kid heroes -Holt, Mira, and Zoey- are forced apart to accomplish individual quests if they are to have any hope of uniting what reamins of Earth's disparate survivors against its alien invaders. 

Mira ventures west to bargain with Van Cleef, the enigmatic leader of North America's most infamous resistance group. But Van Cleef has his own plans to end the conflict, a destructive solution that might actually work...but at a horrible cost. Meanwhile, Holt travels with Ravan and Avril back to the one place he swore he would never return: Faust, the sprawling and dangerous desert city of the Menagerie pirate guild. He goes not only to resolve his issues with Tiberius, its tyrannical leader, but to enlist the Menagerie in the fight to save Zoey. Except Tiberius has his own problems. Factions within the Menagerie are splintering, and word of rebellion is beginning to spread. If Holt wants the Menagerie's help, he might have to help his greatest enemy in exchange.

Traveling separate paths with little hope of safety or reunion, Holt and Mira bring this thrilling, genre-bending series to an utterly unforgettable close. 

My first review of Midnight City

My Review:
I loved reading these books! I really enjoyed Midnight City the first time I read it, but I needed to reread it so I could continue on with the series. To be able to read the whole series all together, back to back, was a great experience! 

This world with the Assembly coming and conquering earth, and enslaving humanity-the adults, leaving children only to rebel, yeah, it was so interesting to read about! I loved learning more about how they were fighting back against the tone, and figuring out the mystery of Zoey.

Mira, Holt and Zoey were so fantastic to read about! Their dynamics as a group, what secrets they were holding, how they were affecting this world, I had to read more! And as the events progressed, and their situation became more clear what they could do, what they were facing, I had to keep reading! 

This series had me hooked till the end. I was engrossed reading about them as they went on these journeys, they were so entertaining! How everything was resolved, was epic, and while I'm sad to say goodbye to them, I had a great time with what time we had with them. 

Loved reading these books and I would love to read more by J. Barton Mitchell!  

Author: J. Barton Mitchell
Series: Conquered Earth #0.5, 1, 2, 3
First Read: December 15th, 2013
Read: 8th, 8th, 9th, 9th, 2023
Source: Ebook.bike, Own, Own/NetGalley
Reason Why: Rereading! And they're 2023 Dystopia Challenge Books and Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2023 Books! And The Severed Tower is a RR Book and a WTC Book! And Valley of Fire is a End of Series 2023 Book!
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press
Published: December 17th 2013, October 1st 2012, November 19th 2013, December 2nd 2014

Winterbay:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

/5 Stars

Midnight City:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

The Severed Tower:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Valley of Fires:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars