Let's Talk Books

Pleasure creates magic. Pain makes it stronger.

Saffron Killoran lives in pain. Her parents were murdered in front of her, her life marred by the vicious, cruel actions of the Bloodmoons, a heinous criminal group. Days from graduation, soon to be a detective, a Silvercloak, things go terribly wrong, and Saffron is left with an impossible choice: leave the Silvercloaks in disgrace, or leave the Silvercloaks in disgrace to become a deep cover operative. Neither path will be easy, both will leave her friendless, and isolated. Only one will give her the opportunity to bring the Bloodmoons down.

Undercover in the Bloodmoons, every moment could be her last. With pressure, and prophecy, hanging over her head, Saff must commit evil to prevent evil. But in the heart of this cruel, greedy, horrifying organisation is something she didn’t expect. Levan, son of the Kingpin, a mage with extraordinary power, and perhaps… a heart?

Silvercloak is an unusual kind of Romantasy-thriller, with a unique magic system, and strong sense of place. Steven has a bit of an info-dump problem, which she never quite gets over, but which improves as the narrative progresses. This tell > show style is habitual, and results in asides, or flashbacks to earlier, not entirely relevant, passages even in the midst of high tension situations. In places this successfully built suspense, in other places it knocked the scene back, reducing the potential emotional impact. Saffron is an interesting lead, although her actions and thoughts don’t always chime – as is a frequent issue in romantasy, our lead tells us repeatedly that she is a sensible, intelligent planner, whose ability to consider things from all angles, and manipulate situations, will aid her… only to routinely act without thinking. This is so prevalent, that Saff actually acknowledges her new found habit of not thinking things through, yet she does not learn!! Her romantic foil, Levan, up until the last few chapters, seems to be a complex, but ultimately likable, figure. Without revealing the twists, some of this seems to be undone. His characterisation arguably gets more, and less, complex in that moment.

Steven is a mechanically good writer, although her clumsy use of motif, which lands a little closer to repetition, became irritating after a while. The detail of Lost Dragonborn, particularly, seems to do a lot of heavy lifting in the relationship building. Equally, the repeated mentions of Flight of the Raven are odd and seem to put far too much import on a board game: the equivalent, I think, would be like a character in an urban fantasy crediting their problem solving skills to Settlers of Catan, or their financial sense to Monopoly.

Having said that, the core story here is interesting. This is not a short book, and I made it through to the end, but I didn’t experience that rush of excitement to pick it up again. The plot was weaving, and moved forward at a good pace, events lead to events, decisions impacted actions, you felt the characters were interacting with their environment. The central romance felt plausible, the friendships reasonable, the cruelty motivated. Saff, although sometimes annoying, was brave and principled. The religious undertone felt a little unplaceable in this novel, but will clearly come to bear in the sequels. The last few chapters were especially strong, and though they left me with the sense that this was almost a prequel to the action, I am excited to see where Steven will take the Silvercloack saga.

3.5 stars.