Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.

City of Snares is a strange little novella about a young girl who is drawn into the dark side of Hollywood by an aging star with ulterior motives. This is a quick read that isn’t too predictable. It’s pretty fun overall and is light on the horror itself.

3.5

Hazel crosses an ocean, moving to the City of Dreams, not for stardom or the limelight that comes from rubbing elbows with celebrities, but for the chance to be her true self. So she’s stunned when fading star of the silver screen, Diana Blake, wanders into the diner where she works and declares her intention of turning Hazel into the next, hot ingénue.

Great! Very well written!

I thought this one would stray from what I am used to. i ws wrong. It gets dark and twisted. It's more of a slower burn, but that takes nothing from the story.
It's more subtle with the horror. With some naughtiness mixed in.
Enjoyable.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC of this title.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.Rating : 3.5/5. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

While I cannot say that I found anything wrong with this novella, it just didn't click for me as a 5star. My only real critique is that the writing style feels a little unpolished, but it's quite serviceable. A short, Hollywood set bodysnatchers story with queer focus.

The characters are distinct, the singular POV of Hazel and her infatuation with Diana does a good job narrating. A few times I felt frustrated that Hazel wouldn't just grab her things and go, with numerous and blatant red flags and warnings about Diana. The plot itself was a backline--- the main focus is on our two main women. I feel like this could be fleshed out into a 250 page full story, gaining more time to build suspense instead of just suspicion. There were maybe one or two too many side characters killed off swiftly for such a short title.

It's not that I didn't enjoy it, it's just that I wasn't living for it. Overall a good and solid story.

Sapphic novella, with short chapters made this a quick read. The horror elements were subtle and atmospheric and the characters were magnetic.

The only thing I didn’t like about this book is that it ended. Such a fun and clever read and I loved the old Hollywood. Thanks NetGallery!

City of Snares is a absolutely mesmerizing novella about what we will do for love and fame.

Hazel is a young woman who has come over from England to Hollywood for a chance at love and freedom. Instead she finds Diana Blake, a fading Star of the silver screen who Hazel has loved from her first time seeing her on the screen. Diana would like to craft Hazel into the next star of Hollywood, one to turn heads and hold on to fame for years to come. Hazel on the other hand craves Diana's love and touch, and finds herself increasingly strung along in the hopes of any affection from Diana.

This is horror novel that digs into our obsession with the unknown, with seeing the monster coming and being unable to-do anything to stop it. It is disturbing in all the right places and brimming with slow building terror for Hazel. You can see what is coming from the start and keep hoping that Hazel will see it as well, instead you find yourself and Hazel caught in Diana's stunning grasp and craving more of her.

I would recommend this for those looking for:
- Disturbing Horror
- Queer Horror
- Classic films
- Slow-burn Horror
- Old Hollywood Glamor

I would check the trigger tags on this if you pick up as it does have quite a bit of medical/body horror.

I received an advance review copy of this book and I am leaving this review voluntarily and all thoughts and opinions are wholly my own and unbiased.

I can see exactly the sense of menace April Yates wants to create with this sapphic Old Hollywood horror novella, but alas, her writing is neither polished nor punchy enough to evoke the desired response. There’s little tension to each sentence, which translates to minimal tension in each scene, and grammatical issues like comma splices abound. I read the first 25%, then skipped to the end to see if I’d guessed where it was headed. (I had.)

This short story had my brows furrowing all throughout and then left my jaw hanging by the end. The author did an amazing job writing this story. I am both astonished and disturbed (in a good way). I don't know if it's appropriate to say but I was 'mind-f**cked.

This was an intriguing novella. A great story about a period of time in hollywood laced with horror elements. The characters are unique and help pull the reader into this unusual story. It was difficult to put down and one i would recommend to fans of horror and old hollywood stories.

It is a good novella. I really liked the subtle horror elements the author put throughout the story, it made it eerie. This may be a bit weird, but Diana made me think of Evelyn Hugo — older actress, bold personality. Hazel left me indifferent. And the plot is quite enjoyable, even though the sexual content was a little too much for me.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for a honest review.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Brigids Gate Press for the ARC copy they provided.

From the very beginning when I saw April Yates’s City of Snares on NetGalley, it gave me Sunset Boulevard vibes. A fading actress claims a young, blossoming, rising star, and twisted horrors ensue. Sunset Boulevard gave me nightmares when I was a child, and I went looking for that dark, looming terror in City of Snares.

I was not disappointed.

April Yates delivered in every possible way, even including a not-so-subtle nod to the movie that I was convinced I’d made up in a grim part of my own haunted imagination, until a friend pulled it out and about gave me a heart attack when I realized Sunset Boulevard was in fact real.

City of Snares delivers that same suckerpunch effect.

You know what’s coming. Right from the beginning, you know what’s in store for the unfortunate heroine, but you go on hoping she’ll get away, all the same. And when the end you always knew was coming sneaks up and slaps you in the face, all you can do is sit back and take it in.

If you love the old, black-and-white film aesthetic, and how creepy classic films can be, you will love City of Snares. April Yates’s writing is clear and clean, and yet still manages to make you FeEl things you weren’t expecting to experience. Affection, loathing, hero worship, the glitz and grime of a time long past.

Add all that to a queer narrative, and City of Snares becomes a read you simply can’t put down. I reached the end of the book, and wanted the story to go on. I don’t think anyone can ask for more out of a book.

I gave this a two star i didn’t care for the book that much. I guessed what was going to happen I was surprised or anything.

“City of Snares” by April Yates is a short book about Hazel, a girl from a small town who moves to California to find herself. When her path collides with the movie star, Diana, her life takes an unexpected turn. Diana has chosen Hazel to become her next project, to make her a famous movie star. Diana’s power in the movie industry is alarming to Hazel and makes her think twice about her decision to trust Diana.

The book has a unique and interesting concept. I don’t read a lot of books about old Hollywood. All the ending stuff about the actress who made Diana famous is a bit confusing. I do like how narcistic Diana is especially with her clout in the industry which fits her character well. Hazel on the other hand was not my favorite main character. She is so naïve and doesn’t put much effort into leaving the bad situation she is in which I found annoying. I liked the book but just didn’t really love it. I think if Hazel was a more complex character the book would have been better in my opinion. 3 out of 5 stars.

-Torture
-Hollywood
-Actresses
-Drugs and Abuse
-Narcissist
-Insta Love
-F/F
-

Why are content warnings being posted at the end of books? Aside from being inconvenient, if a person were to download a sample of this on kindle they wouldn’t be able to read the content warnings because you only get a very limited selection of text. That being said, the content warnings are as follows:
•Eye trauma
•Mentions of sexual assault & attempted rape
•Forcible removal of teeth

There’s some weird spacing throughout that may be due to my font size although it looks format related, and there are a lot of issues with poor grammar and wrong or missing punctuation (apparently semicolons are nonexistent), and there are a few random blank pages towards the end of the Kindle version. Some words were jarring to me visually because they were written in British English so the spelling was different, like “woollen”, but there were a few actual typos. I don’t know if they slipped by with formatting the story to Kindle or if they are like that in the physical copies. Then there’s repetition of words which I find lazy, (ie: “The driver sneered at Hazel as he held the door. They rode in silence, and it was dark when Hazel arrived back at Diana’s. “Better?” she sneered.) All in all, this wasn’t my favorite thing to read, but it wasn’t bad.

The premise of the story was interesting enough, and that coupled with the brevity of the story is what kept me reading. The plot, unfortunately, panned out exactly how I surmised it would which is rather unfortunate; I would have liked a twist or two thrown in rather than predictability.

The role of the housekeeper in the situation isn’t ever really defined either other than Diana “can’t be without her”, but more confusing is how they got away with Elsbeth’s replacement considering the replacement was known in the industry. We also don’t get much clarification on the nameless driving force behind all of this and what it gets out of the situation, which I assume is because the author never sussed it out. Nothing powerful like that is ever freely given, yet we are supposed to believe that is exactly what happened because the nameless entity in the woods is magnanimous. Doubtful.

I have a hard time empathizing with characters like Hazel. The way she is constantly treated and manipulated is one thing, but the fact that she recognizes it but still stays had me getting irritated. You don’t feel for her because she literally does nothing to help herself. And to be so completely under someone’s control from the get go like she was just seemed far fetched. Some of the dialogue seemed a little too modern, particularly for women in the 40s so it pulled you out of the story a bit as it doesn’t always seem like it’s set in that time period.

It had promise and probably could have been be workshopped more with a broader range of beta readers to give additional feedback. As it stands I give it 2 stars.
Thank you to NetGallery and Brigids Gate Press for the arc.