The Silvered Review

Title: The Silvered

Author: Tanya Huff

Date of Publication: November 6, 2012

Formats Available: Hardcover, E-Book

Buy This Book: Amazon

Synopsis: The Empire has declared war on the small, were-ruled kingdom of
Aydori, capturing five women of the Mage-Pack, including the wife of the were Pack-leader. With the Pack off defending the border, it falls to Mirian Maylin and Tomas Hagen—she a low-level mage, he younger brother to the Pack-leader—to save them. Together the two set out on the kidnappers’ trail, racing into the heart of enemy territory. With every step the odds against them surviving and succeeding soar….

My Review:

When I liked The Silvered I really liked it and when I disliked The Silvered I really disliked it, there was little to no grey area for me when it came to liking this novel. Following the story of each, Mirian, Tomas, Danika Hagan, and Captian Reiter; this novel jumped around between characters at an almost overwhelming rate. Even though I usually love seeing situations from different characters perspectives it really didn't work for this novel.

The only part of the novel I really enjoyed was the story following Mirian and Tomas. With plenty of action, romance, and magic their sections of the novel always held my attention and drew me into the story. However, almost every other story line bored me to tears, the sections following Danika, Captain Reiter, and various other characters were so dry I could hardly pay attention to the valuable plot developments. The parts about Mirian and Tomas were absolutely fantastic; unfortunately the rest of the novel just fell flat compared to their story.

Tomas and Mirian were both fun and exciting characters to read about. I loved watching their relationship develop and gradually move into romance. Mirian was a strong female lead, obviously in charge of her relationship with Tomas and a powerful mage she was a fantastic heroine. Tomas complimented Mirian perfectly and his constant changing between skin and fur always kept me on my toes.  Unfortunately the rest of the characters in the novel fell flat, maybe it was because I was bored by their stories but I just didn't feel the same connection with them.

Even though I loved the parts of the novel about Mirian and Tomas their story just didn't make up for how dreadfully boring the other two thirds of the novel was. The constant changing of perspectives really started to annoy me at some points, there were parts where the perspective would change three times on one page then not change again for 25 pages. Paired with the extremely slow beginning and lack of strong stories for all the characters the bad parts of this novel far outweigh the good ones.

While not necessarily a bad novel The Silvered definitely drags on and is by no means a page turning read. Even though I wanted to like this novel for Tomas and Mirian in the end I found that I just couldn't make myself like the book as a whole. Fans of high fantasy may enjoy this one but overall I wouldn't recommend this novel.

3/5