Lark has spent seven years running from her abusive father, using a curse that lets her push raw fear into anyone who threatens her. Human settlements are shrinking and safety is scarce, so she turns to a place childhood stories warn against: Cagmar, the city of trolls, built on a bridge suspended over a canyon.
The trolls have no love for humans, but Lark's fear magic makes her useful. Instead of the labor other humans are given, the troll high council sets her to slay the monsters that stalk Cagmar's edges. One rule keeps her alive there: turn her power on a troll and she dies for it.
Some trolls still want her gone. A friendship forms anyway, then something closer, with a troll who has his own reasons to despise humankind, and the pull between them is as dangerous as anything she hunts. Her father is still out there looking, and the high council's welcome is thinner than it first appears.
The Hanging City is Charlie N. Holmberg's 2023 fantasy romance, a story about a woman who has always had to be feared learning what it costs to be trusted. It reads like a slow thaw: careful and watchful before it turns warm.