Book Review: Dark City Girls 3 by Michael Dalton and Adam Lance

The third and final part of the Dark City Girls trilogy by Michael Dalton and Adam Lance was published today (29th January 2026) for the Amazon kindle ebook reader.

Dark City Girls is a noir fantasy combat story blending romantic and magical elements and either directly includes the main characters from, or references, more than half-a dozen other series written by the authors in what they call the "Fateforged Universe." It is a "gamelit" story, e,g, it reads like a novelised version of a fantasy roleplay combat adventure game, complete with character sheets with ability lists and combat stats for the main characters and occasionally some of their antagonists.

The central character "General Zane" had been a major leading a cavalry troop during and immediately after the American Civil War. In 1867 he and some of his men accidentally passed through a gap between worlds and found themselves in the "Fae Wilds" e.g. a place where dreams and creations of the imagination become real, including all kinds of magical creatures.

The circumstances of his transfer to this other world gave Zane an immensely extended life span: because the only profession he knew which transferred easily to the Fae Wilds was war, he became a mercenary leader and spent the next century and a half commanding armies in increasingly bloody and messy conflicts.

After a hundred and fifty years of that, Zane had quite enough of killing, seeing friends killed, and nearly getting killed himself. So he retired back to Earth, making his home in California in a fictional city which is the setting for many of Michael Dalton's books, called Santo Domingo. 

But although Zane was finished with wars, they were not finished with him.

During the three books of the "Dark City Girls" trilogy Zane has to deal with increasingly powerful magical threats, at first to himself, then to the city, then to both our world and the "Fae Wilds." He also acquires more than one unusual girlfriend.

There is a lot of violence in these stories and a lot of fairly explicit and unconventional sexual activity and these books are not written for or suitable for children.

This final book in the series finishes a story arc about a major conflict called "The second Aether War" which impacts on several other sets of stories by these two authors. Main characters from most of those series appear in this book, and the rest are referenced.

The other books whose characters also appear in this one include Michael Dalton's "Demon Hunter" series, particularly Jimmy Kaplan and Ariella; his "Shifter Girls" series, particularly Jake and Agent Katie Donaldson; Adam Lance's "Fates enforcer" series (Alex), and Dalton's "Red Elf Ranch" series (Connor Mills). There are also references to Thomas the Goblin King from the "Isekei Emperor" trilogy, a cameo for the central character of Dalton 's "Bikini Days" series, Ethan Hill, and references to the comedy "Trailer Park Elves" series, and to "Boat Wizard." 

Indeed, "Dark City Girls 3" directly follows on from the events of the last two books I mentioned: the first page of the main action of "Dark City Girls 3" is the final Epilogue of the most recent "Trailer Park Elves" book, and the events of "Boat Wizard," which have obviously happened only days before, are also referenced in the opening of the book and are part of the setup of the first mission in this story.

Despite al these linkages between books, you do not have to have read any of these series to understand or enjoy reading another, though be warned that if you do enjoy reading one of Michael Dalton's books there is a very good chance that you will find yourself looking up and reading a lot of the rest.

The "Dark City Girls" trilogy is well written and entertaining, if a bit off-the-wall in some ways. I would not recommend reading it if you are at all prudish.

One minor issue is that the authors have made a little too much use of the "cut and paste" function when repeating chunks of text between different books.  Sometimes, as mentioned above where the epilogue of one book is the start of another, this can be a perfectly acceptable way of drawing attention to how some of the plotlines from the former book follow through to the latter. However, I must have read almost identical chunks of text about Jimmy Kaplan in at least three or four different books when various central characters are on their way to meet him for the first time in that book or explaining his influence on Santo Domingo.

You can buy "Dark City Girls 3" from Amazon at:

Dark City Girls 3: An Urban Fantasy eBook : Dalton, Michael, Lance, Adam: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store