City of the Beasts

About the City of the Beasts series

When his mother is diagnosed with cancer, fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold is sent to spend the year with his eccentric, larger-than-life grandmother Kate, a magazine writer who promptly drags him along on an assignment deep into the Amazon in search of a legendary, possibly mythical beast. Alongside Nadia Santos, the daughter of their expedition guide, Alex is pulled into a world of indigenous mysticism, ecological threat, and genuine magic that his rational, science-minded upbringing never prepared him for. The trilogy follows Alex and Nadia across three expeditions -- the Amazon, the Himalayas in search of a hidden kingdom, and the Congo rainforest -- each one testing them against greedy outsiders, ancient spiritual traditions, and their own growing abilities.

Isabel Allende wrote City of the Beasts as her first foray into YA and adventure fantasy after more than a decade of acclaimed literary fiction for adults, and the shift shows in pacing and directness while keeping her signature interest in magical realism, indigenous cultures, and strong-willed grandmother figures fully intact. Kate Cold, modeled loosely on Allende's own irreverent sensibility, narrates each book's magazine dispatches that bookend the main story, giving the trilogy a journalistic frame around its fantastical content.

Each book sends Alex and Nadia to a different endangered ecosystem and culture, using the fantasy adventure structure to explore real-world themes of environmental destruction, colonialism, and the limits of Western rationalism when confronted with traditions it doesn't understand.

How to read this series

Read in publication order: City of the Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, then Forest of the Pygmies. Each book is a self-contained expedition with its own resolution, but Alex and Nadia's relationship and abilities develop cumulatively across all three, so starting with book one is recommended even though each adventure can technically stand alone.