I wanted to love this book because so many of the ideas and concepts in it are really cool and exciting to me, and there are lots of great things about it, it's bold and different and the world-building is detailed and interesting in many ways. However, in the end the quite obvious misogyny in the way the matriarchal society was portrayed made it impossible for me to truly enjoy anything else about the book in the way that I wanted to. I would certainly try another book by this author, and I expect many people will love this but I wasn't able to get past the sexism, personally.

I am going to preface this review by saying that this was one of my most anticipated releases this year, so I was really excited to have the opportunity to read it early! That being said, this book was, personally, a huge letdown.

The overall premise of Silk Fire held a lot of promise to me. The blend of scifi and fantasy elements was exciting, and I personally tend to enjoy heavy worldbuilding, and the promise of queer leads and a polyamorous relationship just pulled me in even more. However, this book fell short for me in all of the places it had initially excited me.

For starters, I couldn’t tell you what the setting of the book was even supposed to be. It takes place in a planet-sized city, which is a very cool concept, but what does that actually mean? Very little is offered in terms of description of places to set them apart from each other. All I know is that this city is filled with larger-than-life sculptures and that dinosaurs and dire wolves(?) apparently coexist. I’m sure that the author had a very thought-out mental image of what the setting was supposed to look like, but ultimately, I could not get on the same page.

Listen, I love fantasy. I enjoy heavy worldbuilding, and I generally don’t mind a little bit of info dumping. Sometimes, with intricate fantasy, you need some amount in order to get the reader on the same page as you, but for as much info dumping as this book had, very little of it actually served to help me understand what I was reading. I’m still very confused about the majority of the book, and I’m no stranger to reading books that are hard to follow or have different narrative structures from what I’m used to. Fantasy is the primary genre I read, and even that couldn’t help me make sense of the convoluted plot and confusing worldbuilding.

That’s not even getting started on the overall matriarchal society that this story took place in. The main plot centered around a bid for power, with the main character trying to use this political struggle as a means to get revenge against his father. When I read the synopsis and saw that the society was matriarchal, I didn’t realize that that would translate to straight up sexism. Now I’m not the prime person to speak on all the reasons why simply flipping the roles between men and women didn’t and doesn’t work, as I’m a transmasc guy. It felt wrong and it felt like the entire story was just an extended narrative of women being Evil. That’s not to say that nobody can ever write a story in which women are the ones holding power over men, but the way this story went about executing that was poorly done at best.

The last topic I’ll touch on is the romance, seeing as it was one of the main reasons I (as a polyam person) was initially so excited about this story.

I knew going into this that it very strictly was Not a romance or centered around the relationship between the characters, which was fine! I usually prefer fantasy books with romance over romance books with fantasy, anyways. I didn’t go into this expecting pages of yearning or for a huge romantic focus, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t still feel let down by what we got. I didn’t find either of the love interests (or any character in the book, for that matter) to be very convincing. Most of the characters read as pretty flat, and I had a hard time caring about anything that was happening to them. The romance was barely developed and the pacing and the ways the characters interacted with each other was honestly all over the place. While it was exciting to see polyamorous characters and seeing them be able to navigate a relationship in the midst of everything else happening around them, the relationship itself seemed to hold very little substance.

Overall, this book is going to be 2 stars from me. I wish I'd liked it more, I really do. However, this just goes to show that intricate worldbuilding and a lot of words don't necessarily add up to good fantasy.

This book had some of the most interesting world-building I've read in a long time, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. While it, as epic fantasies are wont to do, definitely had a learning curve, I both really enjoyed the story and the action of reading it.

I wanted to love this book very much, because the premise was so cool. Unfortunately there were some writing issues for me here. The transitions were a little unclear, the scenes moved a little too quickly with not enough narrative to guide you. And I love when a book drops you in and sets you loose on a story, leaving you to navigate it yourself, but there was a little too much in-universe jargon too early on to make that an enjoyable journey.

I had high hopes for this book but unfortunately, it fell flat. I enjoyed the world at first but then it got pretty convoluted and I lost a lot of interest in the story. Bummer!

Thank you to Netgalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I sadly had to dnf Silk Fire at about 34%.

I really loved the premise of this book but sadly it didn't really live up to it.
I may try to give it another go as I did really want to love it but I'm not really sure of i will as everything just really confused me.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

nope nope nope. this whole matriarchy envisioned by this author reeks of misogyny. the writing is just plain awful, even fanfic has better writing than this. but this is so bad it is painful to read.

Silk Fire's premises really appealed to me but unfortunately, the writing just wasn't for me and I couldn't finish it. I still recommend you try it, as it's solely a question of personal taste!

I'd like to start off by saying I could not finish this book, it went straight to the DNF shelf 1/3 of the way in.

After reading May the Best Man Win also by Ellor, I was intrigued by his writing style. Unfortunately, Silk Fire wasn't for me.

Con's list:
1. The world building is out of this world literally. In all honesty, a lottt of information is thrown at you straight away. Because of this, I felt like I was reading a dictionary with a bunch of definitions with different world-building ideas. The beginning of the book became choppy and my attention waned quickly.
2. It was reallllyyy fast-paced. I was just getting over the fact that he was nearly assassinated (did he nearly get assassinated with Zega in the first chapter? I'm still so confused.) and then he's suddenly in a dragon cave and... you know the rest. It's all too quick and doesn't flow at all. Ellor dumps you with a ton of information and in order to process it, you end up rereading line after line. Sometimes the idea of what is being told is so incomprehensible or poorly written that you have to put the book down just to comprehend it all.
3. Additionally, it seems Ellor has a repetitive theme of making the MC's (May the Best Man Win & Silk Fire) incredibility annoying. Jeremy from MTBMW was so rude and selfish, Koré's internal monologue is hectic and extremely melodramatic. He went from being relatable to a hell no.
4. I'm not going to go into detail about the misogyny or blatant sexism... but yes. It is there.

However, there are some minor things I can give kudos on, pro's list:
1. The cover is gorgeous, no one can argue anything otherwise.
2. The dialogue was good (at times). I did like the quippy dialogue between some of the characters, but sometimes it was misplaced and rather mean. Otherwise, I really took it all at surface level (for the life of me, I really couldn't take this book seriously beyond the obvious sexism and hate).
And last, but not least...
3. This book has a lot of potential! The author is an amazing writer and anyone can tell he has an amazing imagination from how much detail there is in the world-building – if only it was all. somewhat comprehensible.

Unfortunately, the book falls short for the con's list above :(.

Silk Fire is a fantasy sci-fi where you follow courtesan Koré and his journey to finding his self worth and overcoming terrible family dynamics whilst in the midst of world changing political shifts and power struggles.
My rating for this book is 2 and a half stars and throughout the whole time reading this I was hoping to be able to give it more because I really think it had great potential but in the end just fell short on a few things.
The start leaves you a little confused and could have used more worldbuilding but along the way you pick up just enough knowledge of the world and charactors the author has brought you in on to grasp the wider picture.
The flip of gender in the societal structure and power was an interesting touch and it was great to read a book where gender identity and sexual orientation is well represented throughout. The characters were overall my favorite element of the book, and I enjoyed how their stories progressed.
Unfortunately, throughout it felt like an attempt of two types of books and that is what ultmately let it down for me in my star rating. It wasn't given the length to truly be fleshed out enough to be what could have been a great fantasy, especially during the end which felt rushed and resolved far too quickly. On the other side, if it was meant to be an easier romance read, there was far too much policital clutter in there which overpowered the relationships and smut.
Overall, I would suggest giving this book a go as I did enjoy it and my review is very much my own experience and doesn't represent what everyone else will feel.

Honestly this book has such a solid basis for a fantasy world and I think it will lead to a much more colourful and vibrant series. However getting into this Facebook was quite slow and difficult, but once I sort of understood the whole new magic system, I found it quite enjoyable

Unfortunately I feel like this book just wasn’t written for me. I found its only adult aspects were sex scenes written every two pages and a very complicated world system were there is new words for so many things.

I feel like there was some great aspects of political intrigue and some solid individual characters but again the setting and storyline just wasn’t for me

I'll be honest, I had a really hard time with this book. I was mostly just confused the entire time I was reading this. I think reading it in an arc format also didn't help as I feel like a lot of things probably could be fixed and polished up by a team of editors and it would be great. The story and plot are ambitious and creatively grand, the characters were interesting, and the world is engaging. Unfortunately I think the pieces to connect them all are lacking in its current format. Would look forward to seeing how it can be improved from now until publishing date!

This book is beautiful, raw and an adventure. It did take me a couple of chapters to get into it because I had to keep checking who was who but after I did I couldn't stop reading it. I loved reading about a world where it was a matriarchal society and the world building was beautifully done.

The magic, the politics and back stabbing, the rearranging of the society where women are in charge was just everything that I could want in a book and then it gets better with adding dinosaurs!

Thank you so much NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this before it's release and I cannot wait to get a physical copy!

This was an ambitious book and the concept had a lot of promise but the writing is messy and non-sensical which makes it extremely difficult to follow.

I was also extremely disappointed that when I went to find support/context for the world building on the author's social media, I instead found attacked against developmental reviews and accusations again the reader's ability to comprehend.

DNF @10%
Sorry that this book isn’t for me. It’s too confusing and seems like the author wants a really complex world-building but it’s all dumped in the first part so it take a lot to process.

My apologies. I had to soft dnf this at 26%. The world was just so confusing. It was like the author was trying to mesh too many things together.. am used to High fantasy multi pov satires.. and stories with complex characters and worlds but I struggled to connect with this one. I wasn't going to review this but I cannot see an option to mark as dnf

DNF @ 15%

Unfortunately, this book was just not for me. I was really intrigued by both the premise and the themes of this book, however, the writing style was just not for me at all. I just found that it was really difficult to connect the dots in the scenes and I found myself having to reread sentences over and over, to the point where it felt tedious. This is definitely a personal problem though so take this with a grain of salt. That being said, I am in a reading slump and I do hope that I can give this book another go before it comes out in July!

dnf @20%

Everything I had heard about the premise of this book sounded really intriguing and like something I might enjoy. Sadly I just couldn‘t get into it.

The concept of a matriarchal world could be interesting and I was looking forward to reading a trans author‘s take on it but at least up to the point i read it felt like an easy reverse sexism thing where misogyny is transferred onto men copy/paste style which just doesn’t work for me. The rest of the world building sounds interesting so far but even though there are a info-dumpy paragraphs and sentences there‘s never enough explanation for me to get it. I don‘t need details and I certainly don‘t need to understand a world completely in the first few chapters but a story has to make me believe that I will get it (enough) at some point even if I am confused at first and sadly this one didn‘t manage to convince me of that.

I might try to read more of the book at some point but for now I will dnf. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for this review copy.

Extremely detailed world-building and culture-building. Interesting storyline and Koré is easy to like. Good pacing. This one just wasn't for me.