This is a review of an ARC, much thanks to Netgalley and Rebellion for providing it. There are minor spoilers ahead.

It is with a heavy heart that I chose to DNF this book. I was looking forward to this since the author announced it, and I thought the premise was very intriguing. I really enjoy this author, and I think there is a lot of potential, but this book fell short of the mark for me.

I will say up front that I knew this book was an adult fantasy. I am an adult fantasy reader, and some of my favorite books are very heavy adult fantasies. I am not averse to sexually explicit scenes either. I adore first person narratives, and I love an internal, tormented protagonist. These were not my problems with this book. I don't think any of my issues with this book really stem from me expecting it to be something that it was not.

After a lot of thinking, I think Silk Fire tried to do too much at once. It's a very ambitious book, perhaps overly-ambitious, but there were things that I appreciated about it. I appreciated the attempt at a matriarchal society (although somewhat less appreciated that matriarchal meant misogyny was simply replaced by misandry), I appreciated some interesting worldbuilding (dinosaurs are cool, although I'm still not sure how or why they exist, perhaps that is explained later on), I think the concept of a male courtesan trying to influence an election to make sure his father, who would be the first male magistrate ever, does not get elected, is very intriguing.

Unfortunately, the execution was off. There is a lot of disconnect, for me, between the things the characters say and the actual events of the narratives. There is a lot of emotional telling (I am a monster, I don't deserve love, I can't get too close to people), but when I am not yet invested in the character, that emotional telling lacks resonance if it's not connected to the narrative. The MC, Kore, says he's a monster, and yet 1/4 into the book I still didn't understand what is meant to be so monstrous about him. Likewise, we know that he hates his father, and we can infer that it's his father was abusive (and we know his politics are awful, but this feels personal, not political), but the backstory that would help connect to this character and understand the depth of his self-loathing as is held back too long, and not in a mysterious way, but in a way that makes the reader feel like we have missed out on important information. When the MC is constantly telling us and himself that he (the MC) is a monster and who doesn't deserve love, if we aren't given any meaningful insight as to why he might fell that way, the constant internal narrative, which is extremely unsubtle, just starts to grate.

And this is a consistent problem with Silk Fire. There is a disjointed sense to the narrative. One concrete example comes in the first chapter, when we are told that the Temple District suffered from some long ago cataclysm, and that people who go to explore that district never return. Apparently it has been ten thousand years since any one in that district has been heard from. Then, towards the end of the chapter, an envoy from this district just ... appears, which is shocking, but only for about five minutes, and the MC immediately starts thinking about securing their endorsement for the candidate he favors in an upcoming election. I had to go back and make sure that I'd gotten this lore correct. Ten thousand years is an extreme length of time, so you'd think that the appearance of people from that district would be worth more than a slight bit of shock. Moreover, if they've been out of touch for ten thousand years, why would these people care anything about a magistrate election? This isn't building the world slowly, this is making the reader do a double-take.

This happens again with regards to the romance. In a scene near 20% in, the MC starts having a shockingly heartfelt conversation with his future love interest about his ex. At this point the MC and this potential love interest have had only a handful of interactions and I had not in any of them gotten the sense that there was some strong draw between these two characters. The MC has told us several times up to this point that he cannot get close to people, cannot form true attachments, but now he is dumping on this man that he has known for a handful of days, with no explanation. Does this man make him feel like he can be more forthright than usual? Perhaps, but if that's the case, we need to know that. Instead, I was left feeling as if I'd missed a scene between them, missed some important development in their relationship.

This disjointed feeling is what ultimately led me to put the book down. I constantly felt like this book was yanking me from scene to scene, conversation to conversation, with no sense of flow. There is information given, but it's not the information that is necessary to understand the story. I feel like this book, at times, was pulled in two different directions. It wanted to move along at a swift pace, but it also wanted to have in depth world building. It was plot driven, but also wanted to have a strong internality and depth of emotion. I have seen the author describe this book in a recent goodreads post as "what if Sanderson wrote Kushiel's Dart" and I honestly cannot think of a more cursed combination, but it also somewhat explains the issue I had with Silk Fire. For the record, I enjoyed Kushiel's Dart, but Sanderson is not my thing at all.

There were a couple of stylistic choices that were not to my liking, such as the tendency of the author to put the character's internal narrative in italics, or the abundance of made up words, but those are personal preferences, other people may not have the same issues.

Thank you NetGalley and Rebellion for the ARC of this book!

Silk Fire by Zabe Ellor is an ambitious book, full of political sabotage and backstabbing, and trauma so deep it keeps its characters from seeing their path.

The concept of this book is excellent. A courtesan, tossed aside by his powerful father, is determined not to let that father reign evil over the city that already beats those without magic ('dulls') down as much as it can. Through manipulation, both sexual and emotional, our MC Kore takes the task of saving everyone on his shoulders even if it means destroying himself in the process. The world is something I've never read before - part space opera and part mythical gods and magic - and it makes the saving of a city planet complex and dangerous when everyone is out for themselves.

Kore as a character has a nice growth arc in this book. We see him internalize all the trauma he's faced in his life, having been betrayed and tossed aside over and over again. When he meets his love interests his first instinct is to run and hide. He never feels good enough or pure enough in this matriarchal society where boys are expected to be pure and pious while the girls are given weapons and power. The poly relationship here works well because all three of the characters have their own demons and guilt, and they have to learn to trust each other. I did feel like I missed a bit with them, and wished I could've seen more of the three of them together. As a result, I don't feel like I really felt connected to any of them as a poly trio. I wouldn't have been upset if one of them died and that's a red flag.

I didn't love this book like I wanted to, and the main issue is world-building. It's incredibly messy and confusing, and I'm still not sure what I just read. War is described as a city planet, but the history is fuzzy. Dinosaurs and magic and gods all exist together, but it's not woven well and the pattern hits more snags that I'd like to read. The dialogue is also a bit clunky, switching between something formal and poetic to modern-day slang.

Great concept, poor execution. I think this could really be something spectacular with some editing and cleaning up, so I'll be interested to see if anything changes in the final version.

Well, I hate to DNF an ARC but after a few chapters I was just more and more confused and less and less into the plot, the prose, and the MC

I did read a review before I requested an ARC that mentioned the worldbuilding was confusing, but I actually love books that drop you right into the middle of things and I thought I'd have a better time of it. Nope - it really is just poorly explained and poorly paced. I kept having to page back to figure out who was talking, where they were, what was going on, and if I'd missed something or if it just wasn't on the page.

It was at once too busy and boring, with a lot happening but nothing that grabbed me or felt important and the transitions were so abrupt I had whiplash. Two characters fall through the floor and then have sex, and it was so disjointed I had to go back like, was the fall metaphorical? Did that happen in someone's head? No, they literally fell through several floors into a mysterious cave with an altar but first, passionless sex.

The MC I didn't find particularly compelling. He's a politician's bastard who made good, a sex worker who (I think? again - this book info dumps and yet I'm confused all the time) owns his own brothel. He knows he's desired as a courtesan and he knows he's got power and at the same time has really trite internal monologue about how no one could ever love him, he's merely a pawn in others games. And then went great power does come to him, instead of seizing it for his goals he...is determined to hide it? IDK!!

Again, I hate to DNF an ARC, but stuff just kept happening one after another like explosions in a meaningless action movie. I couldn't catch everything this book threw at me and I highly doubt continuing would improve my opinion. I really wanted to like this and I just couldn't get into it at all.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

Wow!! I really enjoyed reading Silk Fire. When I first started it, I was confused by the gender languages, but I really enjoyed the fact it was written from a male's perspective. Typically in romance/sex scenes, women are the forefront of the attention. Reading it from a males perspective was a welcome, unexpected change. We need more fantasy books like this!

Unfortunately, I have decided to dnf this book at 20%
I really want to keep going but this book is way to confusing for me to keep reading. I am super disappointed because I really wanted to like this book however, the world-building was very confusing and didn't make sense. The writing was all over the place and honestly way to choppy. it didn't flow nice at all. Another reason why I am not finishing the book is because the character's names makes it really difficult to pronounce which makes it even harder for me to read. I understand that this is a high fantasy book but I feel like the author just randomly threw names together like I liked how the author tried to make a pronunciation key in the beginning of the book but the names were still hard to say like the only name that was easy to understand was Kore's name who is the main character. Another reason why I don't like this book is because the characters felt way too flat for me to enjoy. The main character Kore was interesting to read from but I felt like he had no personality.
This book was just way too confusing and hard to understand. I tried to follow along and understand what was going on but it was like the author just wanted to throw all this information at you without telling you what the information means. But the writing was just too dry for my taste. The storytelling did not flow at all and the narrative was just to choppy and all over the place. I couldn't picture the world at all because the world-building was just too complicated to picture.
I understand what the author was trying to do but I think he failed at making the world come to life. The aspects he was trying achieve had potential but I feel like the author was trying too hard to be different with all of the different fantasy/sci-fi aspects like with all of the different technology, dragons and magic just thrown in their that together they didn't really make any sense.
Thank you to NetGalley for offering me this eARC of Silk Fire.

I grabbed this one because of that beautiful cover. Sadly after I started it I just kind of didn't really like it at all. The writing was super messy and the book just felt like it was trying to do to much all at once.

Okay, so this cover is incredible! Everything about it is amazing! As soon as I saw it I knew I had to get my hands on this book. The color palette, the dragon scales, the name! It's firing on all cylinders, the cover designer and artist deserve major props.

Unfortunately...I'm sorry to say that the book contained within the cover is a mess 😬 Let's get into it, spoiler-free (unless otherwise stated)...

This book takes place in a grim fantasy world sparkling with a mix of technology and magic, steeped in moral bankruptcy, political scheming, & cruel classism.

This world is divided into those who have and those who have not, and what they have and have not is a magical force called essence, kind of like life-force that all living beings naturally produce but that can also be collected, stolen, hoarded, and freely given between people. This essence enhances an individual's own life-force allowing them to live longer, be stronger, faster, smarter, more beautiful. And so of course it's hoarded by the rich and powerful.

The story's MC, Kore BrightStar, is an illegitimate bastard son living on the edges of this world's most elite society. He is a high-end courtesan that owns his own brothel and uses his unseemly connections & natural charm to politically maneuver revenge against his highborne father.

This book is trying to do ALOT. Probably too much. It is a non-stop political backstabbing twisty turney roller coaster that moves at a nonsensical breakneck pace. Especially in the beginning and the whole second half of this book it is hard to know what is actually going on a lot of the times. It can be difficult to know where you are in terms of setting. Scenes shift as quickly and unpleasantly as loyalties in this book. It's really a problem in terms of storytelling more so than in terms of plot. I think this plot sort of stripped down is not in itself bad, but the way it's being told narratively is unfortunate and frustrating to read.

The author tried to build this hybrid sci-fi fantasy world that mixes technology ancient magic, old feuds ancient myths, gods, rulers, dragons, nacromancers, political Intrigue, romance, flashbacks, sword fights, zombies, magic, daddy issues.... And it's not to say all of these things can't or shouldn't exist within one story or one book. In fact we know that they can and maybe should, BUT this is just things thrown at the wall. I can see how this if it were cleaned up and parsed out and sort of taken by a firm hand might have made a fantastic story and a really enriched kind of unique sci-fi hybrid world... This just isn't it. It's unpolished and confusing to look at. It's hard to have a real sense of the setting or the world outside of Kore's head & the blinding light of his emotions.

Kore is not a bad protagonist though he may come off as a bit overdramatic at times. Flip-flopping from one extreme to the next. But that can be forgiven in an angsty tortured soul protagonist, and he goes through real character development throughout the course of the story. If anything his character arc is the steady line in the storm of this book. The book is about Kore learning his own self-worth, what it means to be loved, and how to recognize that when it comes along.

The romance and the love interests are also not poorly done. In fact I would say if the book had slowed down, pulled back on the political reigns, focused a little bit more on the relationship(s) between Kore & his love interest it would have really benefited an emotional payoff towards the end. His love interests are interesting as complex as the breakneck pacing will allow them to be, noble but not innocent, and distinctly different from one another in a way that gives the polyamorous relationship depth. They both work as good matches for Kore, and I really wish this book had given us more of that and more of the three of them together. Because let's be honest I came here for the polyamory and let's be really honest I stayed here for the polyamory.

The truth is I almost stopped reading this book multiple times. Once very close to the beginning when I just was rubbed entirely the wrong way by the writing style. Because in those first few chapters there is absolutely no hand holding you are thrown into a political shark tank full of fantasy world terms, references, character/place names, and it is a total bombardment. However I stuck with it for the polyamory (and for the promise of dragons). And honestly it got a little bit better and I was genuinely enjoying it leading up to the halfway point, and then there's this big climactic thing that happens around chapter 16 and it honestly felt like the end of the book or a book. And then everything fell apart again and the plot gets really jumbly the pacing gets out of whack again and I had to force myself to finish the second half of the book.

If you're coming here for the dragons you're going to be disappointed. Not going into spoilers so I won't say much more than that but if you're here for the dragons this is not the place to be. If you're here for the polyamory there is that and it's not poorly done but there's not really enough of it. I wanted so much more of it and you have to get through so much political bull and like angsty daddy issue stuff, to get little enjoyable glimpses of the polyamory.

*To confirm, this book does contain a canon polyamorous relationship, between two men and a woman.*

Overall this book was pretty disappointing and right on the verge of DNF territory. I think the author had some really cool ideas for a fantasy world, and I think there is something to be said for the political plot line and intrigue but it's suffocating and overwhelming. The polyamorous relationship and the characters they're in had a lot of potential and we're at times enjoyable but there just wasn't enough of it. I don't think I'll be continuing on with this series if it is supposed to be a series (I have no idea). But I would consider reading this author again if I felt like they had maybe been more heavily edited and polished, because this book just needed a lot more love.


Trigger Warnings: graphic sex (lots of sex like in every other chapter there's sex), violence, War, classism, sexism, sexual violence, degrading sex, sex games, murder, fire, death of a parent, child abuse, emotional abuse, toxic relationship, name calling, gore, brutality

thanks to netgalley & the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

2.5 star

Silk Fire is an ambitious adult fantasy debut that sadly falls a bit flat in execution. It is one of my most anticipated releases and I'm disappointed I didn't love this as much as I wish I did.

Silk Fire follows a male courtesan Koré in his quest for vengeance against his aristocrat father Vashathke. To do so, he must support Vashathke’s only political rival Akizeké in the campaign to succeed the Judge of War district. In the process, Koré must navigate the complicated political landscape of the War district and make difficult choices as he battles the desire for vengence, love and self-realization.

World-building

In terms of world-building, Silk Fire is very ambitious (that’s the best word I can think of to describe it). Silk Fire is set on a planet-sized city Jadzia and it’s full of elements that many would love from a fantasy, including but not limited to: a rich and complicated history between different districts that provides an interesting backdrop to the political intrigue of the story and paranormal elements like actual dragons (!!) and necromancers.

Honestly, I think conceptually Silk Fire has potential and is genuinely super interesting. Unfortunately, whilst I love the idea of it, the actual world-building is difficult to process. In particular, in the first few chapters, there’s an overwhelming amount of information that are not explained super well. Importantly, not all of the information thrown at the readers are relevant to what is actually happening. As a result, it is hard to absorb and took me a long time to get my bearing in this fantasy world.

What I do really enjoy though, is the explore of gender dynamics and sexuality in this matriarchal society. I haven't really read books set in a matriarchal society and it's super interesting to read.

Characters

Silk Fire is told in first-person pov and in my opinion, a lot of pressure is on Koré being an exceptional character. I have mixed feelings for Koré. I love that Koré is a morally grey character and is willing to do anything for revenge against his father. Koré is unafraid to make difficult decisions when the occasion calls for it and that’s always something I enjoy reading about.

What I don't love is how Koré talks a lot about how he is a cunning, despicable schemer but we are not really shown just how cunning, despicable he is. It’s a personal preference thing but I don’t love it when characters are set up to be a certain thing but it’s mostly just ‘talk’. It makes a lot of Koré’s inner dialogue over-dramatic and loses its meaning as it is repeated over and over again.

Plot

There’s a lot going on with the plot and I think it’s overly ambitious for a standalone around 500 pages. I cannot go into details without spoilers (I might come back to this after publication) but I think more time needs to be spent establishing character motivations and fleshing out the consequences of their action.


Writing

All the things I don’t love about the story is exacerbated by the fact that the writing is quite dry. I’m not a writer so I cannot exactly pinpoint what I would change about it but there is always a disconnect between the reader (me) and what is happening. But for example, I really enjoy the relationship/romance between Koré and Ria and Faziz, there are angsty and delicious scenes but the way it’s told stop me from feeling the full emotional impact those scenes should have??

Another thing that stood out to me is how it can be hard to picture where everyone is in a room. I have a difficult time understanding how characters move from point A to point B and sometimes it interrupts the flow of reading for me.

I know there’s quite a lot of complaining in this review but genuinely, I really do love the concepts Silk Fire introduces. I just wish it’s done differently.

Silk Fire has all the elements that make a successful fantasy novel. Considering it is a fantasy debut, I am open to reading another fantasy book from the author!

This book is a good example of when a Author puts a lot of effort into their world. It is rich, full of history that is teased out through the book, and really enough law to set up a good number of books to follow. I hope there are more, as the world is ripe for many a follow up to come.

I did find the main character a little annoying, but then I find many in the "chosen one" situation to be, But the supporting characters well make up for that. I loved the story as it unfolded before me, and while I was excited to get to the end, I was also sad when it finally ended.

A five star read, and no mistake!

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC!

I found this book really hard to get into and confusing. There’s so much information to process right at the beginning and you’re just not invested enough to make it through that info..

Would not recommend.

I really struggled to get through the first chapter of this book. The overly complicated info-dumping was just too much for me. I've been reading high fantasy and sci-fi my whole life, and this was just over the top for me right now. I might try to come back to it later when I have a clearer headspace. Before I could get into the story I felt like I was in some twist of Dune and Game of Thrones, but with a reversal of Americanized feminine and masculine roles. All of this I should enjoy, because I enjoy all of these things, but I just really struggled with it.

I think the author has something really great going here, and the cover art will definitely grab attention if you can catch on with the social media reviewers. However, I will say that the cover art speaks to a YA crowd, but the book definitely has more adult-level reading required of it.

What killed it for me:

Massive info-dumping before you even get to the story.
Overly complicated names and titles.

What gave it extra stars despite a DNF:
Creativity with world-building
Compelling premise and description (I still want to come back and try to read this book again when I'm in a better headspace)

If you are looking for Complex Queer High Fantasy, Silk Fire is the book for you. The world of this book is absolutely consuming. With head spinning magic and a complex narrative built on power and sex it takes all of your attention to keep track of where the ground is under your feet. I may have been a bit over my head for tackling this one but that just means it was not for me! I am looking forward to seeing more from this author in the future!

Koré is a courtesan who wants to take his father down. In order do that, he has to form alliances with people who can help him achieve his goal, and that means getting involved in politics.

When I saw this premise, I got really intrigued, but when I started reading the book I found it a bit confusing since there was so much happening at the same time. Because of that, it was a bit hard to picture what was going on.

I also didn’t connect with the characters, which is something that matters a lot to me, and because of that, I had to DNF this book.

dnfing (50%) this, it's too unbearable. the mc is overly melodramatic and i can't keep track of any of their names or (due to the terms used, which are NOT explained) can't even picture the political scene. i put down this book many times and kept rereading scenes to understand what was going on. the main character constantly gets on my nerves and there's nothing much i like about him. i can't tell if i'm stupid or this book just makes no sense.

the worldbuilding seems very complex, keyword, seems, because i could not tell you what was going on if i tried. there’s a sort of magic called essence that...makes people prettier? the girl who i'm assuming is one of the love interests falls flat and is more annoying than charming and their romance is more told not shown, there's no chemistry besides the forced bits. i cannot stand the romance in this story because it feels extremely forced. additionally, the sex in every chapter (more than once) gets extremely tiring though i completely understand why it's there (mc is a courtesan) but there's nothing to the scenes of explicit sex other than...well, being <i>there</i>.

there is also no nuance to the matriarchal society, it's just a rehash of our patriarchal society with the genders flipped, something that bothers me a lot because it's a huge selling point of the book but done so poorly compared to the rest of the elements. this entire book could be written with all the genders flipped and it would quite literally barely affect most of the book.

like many other reviewers, my conclusion is that this book tries too hard and it doesn't work, at all.
i'm really disappointed because the blurb was perfect and maybe my expectations were insanely high.

I unfortunately had to DNF this book. I really, really wanted to enjoy this book considering it was made up of qualities i usually really enjoy. Unfortunately the outcome was far too ambitious to be done successfully.

Right off the bat you’re thrown into a world that’s incredibly complex but given no time to understand it. Words are used to refer to mechanics that you have nothing to relate it to so you’re left basically guessing what’s happening. The world building is very complicated but the author doesn’t spend enough time explaining it so it takes you considerably longer then it should to understand what’s going on. It’s almost as if the author didn’t understand that when us reader were beginning this novel, we’d have no idea how this world works. We’ve never lived in it before, so you’d have to ease us in, lead way to the politics and intricacies of this world without overloading us with lore we have no background information on.

The character interactions were impossible to follow for me. They were unbearably dry and it was just a slog to get through. The MC, Kore, is just. so boring. The narration was just such a chore to get through, which just added to the fact that this book is LENGTHY. The pacing was weird too, everything felt like it was happening all at once. not fun to read.

I think all in all, the premise seemed so interesting but the end result was a mess. It was just trying to be too much at once and then ended up coming out really mediocre. Don’t recommend.

Rating: 2.5 stars.

A very difficult book. I requested this because of the cover, it intrigued me immediately and after reading the blurb I was also very curious about the concept. I still think the concept and what this book is trying to achieve are really good, I just think the execution was lacking in several aspects.

I had a problem with the writing right away, it's very confusing right from the start and yet still kind of flat and sometimes feels clumsy. Sometimes the tone and the dialogue felt off and I often wasn't sure what the author was trying to tell me. I had to reread some bits because I didn't understand what I was being told, and sometimes I felt like the next paragraph didn't even have anything to do with the one before.

I had a hard time picturing any images the author tried to convey and therefore also couldn't follow the worldbuilding. I still have no idea what any of those places are supposed to look like. I feel like everything was just very all over the place, especially during scenes with more action. I never really managed to follow the author's train of thought. I also had a hard time understanding the plot, or the character's actions, or honestly anything that was going on. I still can't really say what even happened in this book.

I didn't mind the ending, and I ended up liking the characters as well. I just never really connected to them because I couldn't figure out why they were doing the things they did. The romance was fun, though, and definitely something that kept me reading.

Overall I think that this still has some pretty big weaknesses, but that those could potentially be fixed with some editing, especially regarding the writing style. The plot, characters, and worldbuilding definitely had potential and I really wish I had liked this more than I did.

The first 50% of this book was a five-star read for me. The world is beautifully fleshed out with rich lore, history, and culture. The infusion of sci-fi and fantasy elements in a matriarchal society with dinosaurs and magic coexisting with people, gods, dragons, and futuristic technology is a tall order but Ellor does it well. The queer/diverse representation and new adult themes were also well received. Our protagonist is a male courtesan and owner of a brothel who seeks revenge against his father by scheming with his political rival, all the while maneuvering his own political power when a dead god gives him dragon powers. In this world, people can give and receive life essence from one another resulting in some people having "brightness" or the beauty of the elite and living nearly endless lives spanning hundreds of years. For a sci-fi, fantasy nerd like myself, these concepts are stellar and I loved getting to know this world.

The challenge here was overambition. The amount of narrative development, plot twists, and action sequences could easily take up two books worth of story. The world is already so decadent in details it gets bogged down when each chapter there is a new reveal, a new course of action, a new layer to an already complicated, highly political narrative. Since the story becomes so focused on plot, I felt like a lot of the characterization fell to the wayside and I was progressively less attached to their cause.

Thank you to netgalley for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars.

First, let me say that I did not want to put this book down. There's so much that I enjoyed: the fictional matriarchal society sending up the RL patriarchy, the character development, the found family of sex workers, the polyamory, the canon bisexuality, the mix of fantasy and high technology, that villainy has nothing to do with biological sex or gender.

OTOH, I'm afraid the magic system got utterly lost in the mix and the politicking is excessively Byzantine. I also couldn't keep the names of the characters straight, apart from the protagonists. I don't know why so many characters needed 4-5 syllable names when the protagonist names are all abbreviated to 2 syllables, or why the the pronunciation was so far from the phonetic. Let's just say my TTS reader did not handle that at all well.

The sex is graphic and frequent, as one would expect of a novel shown from the perspective of a queer-identifying sex worker. It also does tend to be necessary to the plot, which is kind of refreshing. Includes MM, MF, MFF sex and MFM cuddles.

I don't want to spoil the main plot, so I'll just say that character development is profound and, apart from some falling anvils at the end, really satisfying.

I definitely wanted to like this book. I follow the author on Twitter and they are very interesting and fun. But I guess this one just wasn’t for me.

I liked the world building enough even though it never felt fully explained. At the same time, we also get a lot of untimely info dumps. This dichotomy in execution didn’t help my understanding of the book. The plot itself is pretty convoluted and made me quite confused. Also, I have to preface by saying that I have no problem with the main character’s profession as a sex worker or the presence of a lot of sex scenes - it’s just that as I come to better terms with my asexuality, I’m feeling more uncomfortable reading such scenes . How I wish I had known this book would be so explicit so that I could have made a better decision about picking it up. But if you are someone who loves your steamy romance, definitely go for it. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Silk Fire was one of my most anticipated releases of the year, after loving May the Best Man Win and seeing the author tweet about it. And boy, did it deliver.

This is, in many ways, a challenging read. The world building and politics aren't very clearly explained, and basically you just have to go with it and figure it all out along the way. Which means it took me longer than usual to read this book, but I'm not mad at that AT ALL, because it was so worth it and it was so engaging. At first I felt like I wasn't quite big brained enough to grasp the story, but it felt really satisfying when things clicked into place, not to mention that even if you don't get it, the vibes are immaculate.

This might make it sound like this is a very dense book, but the fun thing is that it's actually very readable as long as you go with it. I'm kind of allergic to very dense reads, but this book was so readable to me even if it challenged me at the same time, which made for a really fun reading experience.

From start to finish, I enjoyed myself IMMENSELY. I've never read anything quite like this before and it was so dark, intriguing and fun at the same time. I absolutely loved the relationship in this book as well - without wanting to give too much away, it's polyamorous and it was SO good!

I think this is a book people are either going to adore or hate with a passion, just like with May the Best Man Win, but I'm firmly in the former group, and I can't wait to see what the author is going to do next.