Quicksilver (Fae & Alchemy #1) by Callie Hart
Do not turn the key.
Do not open the gate.
In the land of the unforgiving desert, there isn’t much a girl wouldn’t do for a glass of water.
Twenty-four-year-old Saeris Fane is good at keeping secrets. No one knows about the strange powers she possesses, or the fact that she has been picking pockets and stealing from the Undying Queen’s reservoirs for as long as she can remember.
But a secret is like a knot.
Sooner or later, it is bound to come undone.
When Saeris comes face-to-face with Death himself, she inadvertently reopens a gateway between realms and is transported to a land of ice and snow. The Fae have always been the stuff of myth, of legend, of nightmares…but it turns out they’re real, and Saeris has landed herself right in the middle of a centuries-long conflict that might just get her killed.
The first of her kind to tread the frozen mountains of Yvelia in over a thousand years, Saeris mistakenly binds herself to Kingfisher, a handsome Fae warrior, who has secrets and nefarious agendas of his own. He will use her Alchemist’s magic to protect his people, no matter what it costs him… or her.
Death has a name.
It is Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate.
His past is murky.
His attitude stinks.
And he’s the only way Saeris is going to make it home.
Be careful of the deals you make, dear child.
The devil is in the details...
Review: Saeris Fane has lived her life in a realm filled with suffering, where humans are given less than the bare minimum amount of water to survive. After her mother's death, she turns to picking pockets to survive. But when she reaches too high, she opens a gateway between realms and is transported to a realm where she learns that fae still exist. And Saeris finds herself bound to Kingfisher, a handsome Fae warrior who is mysterious, unwilling to share much with her, and realizes that Saeris is an alchemist capable of welding magic that could help protect his people.
I have complicated feelings about this book! Saeris is scrappy and brave. Kingfisher is handsome and brooding. I loved their banter. I loved Carrion Swift! He was truly the best character in the book and deserves his own spin off novel. I loved the fight to survive. There were some interesting twists on the typical fae as presented in other books, namely that in this novel, they're also vampires. And Saeris also has her own powers. There were also lots of unexpected plot twists.
But. I was disappointed in the connection between Saeris and Kingfisher, most notably. He is standoffish, cold, and rude to her for most of the book and hardly communicates with her. I understand that he is trying to resist them falling for one another (although this goal is belied by their physical intimacy lol) but the almost total lack of communication between them hinders them having a true emotional connection. It's difficult for me to believe they feel deeply pulled to one another when they literally know nothing about each other.
Also, just because I am noting that every fantasy book I read has elaborate descriptions of the way the male main character smells, let it be noted that Fisher smells like "the complex scent of a cold winter forest" (280). Later, Saeris says he smells like "the scent of fresh, cool mountain wind, and mint, and the forest at night" (314) and "wild mint and pine needles" (329). Oh and he is also "one thousand and seven hundred and thirty-three" years old (142).
I was also bothered by some of the language the author used, specifically wording that sounded like a modern-day woman and not one set in this ambiguous, historical fantasy realm. For instance, Saeris says, "and, sidenote, Fisher and I were now randomly capable of speaking into each other's minds" (411). And then later she wears, "slate blue shorts and a camisole he magicked out of nowhere for me were butter-soft and very pretty and left my skin almost bare" (445). I'm sorry, is Saeris an influencer from 2024 detailing all this in a reel on Instagram?
Also, Saeris is sort of annoying. Fisher is cold to her and barely speaks to her other than hauling her away to sleep with him occasionally. Yet he is so obsessed with her that he says, "She is moonlight. The mist that shrouds the mountains. The bite of electricity in the air before a storm. The smoke that rolls across a battlefield before the killing starts" (357). Poetic words but hard to believe he's describing the same girl as the one wearing that little butter-soft camisole.
Again, I did like a lot of elements of this book. I was left with a lot of questions and very curious for book two.
Stars: 3
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