The Reading Bud

Book Details:

Author:  Isaak Uriarte & Karsten De Bolt 
Release Date: 20 October, 2025
Series:
Genre: Science-Fiction Fantasy, Dark Fantasy
Format: E-book 
Pages: 294 pages
Publisher: –
Blurb:
Nikki Sinclair has spent years hiding her gifts, living in the shadow of her mother’s secrets and her father’s disappearance. But when a mysterious figure emerges from the Black Realm, spreading chaos and corruption through her world, Nikki discovers her powers may be the only thing standing between survival and annihilation.
Alongside her mother, a hardened Task Force commander torn between duty and family, Nikki is thrust into a battle that spans from darkened alleyways to hidden laboratories, from burning rooftops to ancient mountain temples. As allies fracture and enemies multiply, the line between protector and destroyer blurs.

But this entity is not alone. Its reach spreads across realms, and its hunger for power knows no limits. To save her realm, Nikki must embrace the truth of who she is, even if it means becoming what she fears most.
Full of heart-pounding action, shadowy villains, and a heroine torn between destiny and choice, Midtown: The Forsaken Virus of the Black Realm is the electrifying first entry in a bold new fantasy series.
Perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo, Marie Lu, and Veronica Roth!

Review

Midtown: The Forsaken Virus of the Black Realm by Isaak Uriarte & Karsten De Bolt leans into the kind of dystopian chill that hits harder than rubble and ruined skylines and gives the reader the sense that the world didn’t end so much as it was repurposed by something patient, intelligent, and hungry. The atmosphere is almost immediate: metallic air, dead silence, and that creeping certainty that the dark isn’t empty, it’s listening.

What I enjoyed most is how the book balances high-stakes speculative action with street-level tension. On one side, you have covert operations, unstable science, realm-breaches, and the ominous physics of “crystals” and portals; on the other, you have the grimy pulse of Midtown itself, the neon-and-shadow underbelly, where Nikki feels like the reader’s anchor inside the city’s daily rot. She isn’t written as a polished “chosen one” archetype; she’s written as someone surviving on instinct, impatience, and just enough conviction to keep showing up.

And then there’s the central menace, the Virus, less a simple villain and more a seductive thesis. The book consistently frames power as an offer that arrives right when grief makes you most persuadable. The writing understands a crucial truth of dark speculative fiction: monsters don’t only destroy, they recruit.

Structurally, the pacing escalates cleanly into a cinematic final act and the story commits to spectacle without abandoning character dynamics. The climax leans into destruction, pursuit, and the terrifying sense that something worse is queued up behind the current crisis. By the end, the epilogue lands exactly where a solid first volume in a larger arc should, with a sharpened objective and a visible horizon of threat. The “communication without opening” idea is a smart way to widen the cosmology while acknowledging the cost of unstable gateways, and the final reveal is the kind of line that makes you sit up, because it reframes everything as merely the opening exchange.

Readers who like dystopian sci-fi/fantasy hybrids with portal-tech mystique, morally pressured characters, and a villain whose philosophy is as dangerous as his power will love this book. If you enjoy stories where cities feel like organisms and “salvation” comes with teeth, Midtown will scratch that itch.

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