This book focuses heavily on the romance, particularly the well-executed enemies-to-lovers trope, but I was hoping for more of the fantasy elements to shine through. While I wasn’t fully invested in the couple’s dynamic, their gradual shift from animosity to attraction felt natural and satisfying. The dual POV offered an interesting perspective, though it occasionally got a bit confusing. The world-building has great potential, and I appreciated how the author handled sensitive topics. Overall, while the fantasy aspect didn’t take center stage, the romance and world-building left me curious for more.

This was a very middle-of-the-road book for me. But I do know people I can recommend this book to that will love and enjoy it.

This was a good book that started off strong. Good characters, great story line and I LOVED the romance. The ending was a bit rough, but I can't wait for more stories in this world.

This was an enjoyable enemies to lovers story. You could feel hate and then wonderful sexual tension.

The characters in this book are really well developed and written, which really made you feel connected to them. Their relationship was equally engaging. One of the best parts about this was the body positivity and something I really appreciated in the writing.

The one thing I didn't like was some of the descriptions. As other reviewers have mentioned, the descriptions could be cliched and somewhat tired.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and recommend adding to your TBR!

I was given an ARC for an honest review.

Many thanks to Victory Editing Co-op and P.S. Scott for the advanced copy of Silk and Sword via NetGalley, in return for my honest and unbiased review. Quick note: I don’t recap plots in my reviews, as it’s easy enough to read the book’s synopsis and blurbs, I purely focus on my feelings & opinions of how the books makes me feel.

Unfortunately, I did not find much to like about this book.

What I did like was the overall body positivity featured in the story. Also, the strong, sapphic female characters are something I like to read, so I also liked that. Sadly, this is where my enjoyment ended.

The enemies-to-lovers trope was taken too far for my liking, with the communication being just too crass and mean. Overall, communication between all characters was awkward and stilted.

The language and imagery used by the author was alternatively bland, cliched and confusing. The POVs weren’t consistent, and at times the narrative aspect and tense changed.

I think this book may have been rescued with more spice to ‘cover up’ the poor writing. But overall, it just fell flat for me, with 1-dimensional characters, poor narrative and bad writing.

Moods: dark
Tropes: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, redemption/dark past
Pace: medium
Character development: weak
Plot or character driven: plot
Diversity: medium
Spice: 2.5/5
Trigger warnings: Blood/Gore, Child abuse, Death, Prostitution, Violence

Rating 2/5

Unfortunately, I will not be reviewing this book on my blog (www.mymentalshelf.com)

Really fun concept and thoroughly enjoyed this story! The enemies-to-lovers plot worked extremely well and didn't feel forced. The slow growth between them was wonderful to read about. talk about tension! Personally, I could have handled a bit more spice hut overall I enjoyed this book.
Loved the body rep as well!

Silk and Sword - Scions of the Underworld, book 1 is definitely a enemies to lovers' romance and that is right up my alley.
Petronilla is a Lieutenant General and Aceline is the owner of a brothel in Inferno City. Both Aceline and Petronilla cannot stand each other so when they do come across each other their encounters are anything but nice. That is until Petronilla is forced to stay where Aceline works, finding themselves in close quarters they realize they have feelings for each other.

I enjoyed this story. Following along with Petronilla and Aceline as they grow from enemies to lovers is heartwarming. The character building is great. The world building and different Kingdoms will only grow with the series.

Silk and Sword is enemies to lovers romance. It's hard two believe that these women who can't stand each other , will drop quips at each other when the opportunity arises and who will carry out little acts of revenge to just annoy each other find love tougher. You couldn't help but fall in love with these characters as they slowly open up to each and reveal long held secrets to each other.

I loved storyline and the ending was heart-warming.

Want two protagonists that utterly despise one another? Then Silk and Sword by P.S. Scott is your book.

This one missed the mark for me on a number of accounts; the writing is technically poor, with mismatched POV in certain chapters as well as an abundance of cliche phrases. But what really did it in for me was how thoroughly the two protagonists dislike each other. They're at one another's throats from page one and they're just plain mean to one another. I can understand having the two dislike each other and not get along well, but to be rude, flippant, and hurtful to each other is... well, it kind of put me off the whole romance. There wasn't any redeeming it in my mind, no matter how much the author tried.

That said, I did appreciate the body positivity in the book. It's not overt, just a subtle account of different bodies having fat on them. That worked really well.

Thank you to ntegalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review :)

More of a 3.75*
I was honestly loving the whole story line until I got more toward the end and some of the stuff that happened I thought were unnecessary and my enjoyment dropped a bit but not enough to make me dislike this book in any way.
The characters, their storylines, the romance, the smut; everything about it was great. It's told in dual povs which I love in romance and the courtesan/general pairing was so so cute. The secondary characters got their times to shine in the story as well which I loved because I thought they were all so inetresting. Beware of trigger warning though because it does get dark at times!
All in all a great story with great characters :) I recommend if you're looking for sapphic rep.

Incredibly unique book. I'm still not sure I know/remember all the "lands" but I don't think you really need to. And I'm not sure the reason why Petronilla really needed to stay at Acelina's pleasure house was the strongest storyline to get them to spend time together, but I went with it. Why? Because I love me some hate to love stories!

Petronilla and Acelina's initial mutual dislike was super fun. And I loved Petronilla's background story, so it made sense why she categorized Acelina in the same boat as all the other "madams". And then once they started really talking and understanding each other, I loved them together.

Overall I found it very interesting and I was entertained. There were a few story points that I thought were a little weak, but it doesn't change that I would recommend this book for any fantasy fans out there.

Petronilla and Acelina can barely stand each other. Petronilla is a Lieutenant General with a traumatic courtesan past, and Acelina is the owner of the most prestigious brothel, Duality, in Inferno City. They see each other occasionally through work, but every encounter is hostile. When Petronilla is forced to stay at Duality for work, both women discover feelings that leave them in awe.

This is such a beautiful and intense love story. I love the character growth that we get from both women as they learn about each other and truly support one another. The employees of Duality are such a joy to read, and they all add different elements to the story. I was intrigued by the introduction to the world that we received, with the different kingdoms and their relationships with one another. I am really excited to see how this world develops in the next books.

If you like fantasy, FF romance, and generous spice – this book is a must-read for you!

Everything about this story is an excellent romance in another world. The tension is simply excellent, the overcoming of previous trauma is spectacular, and the character growth for both of our main characters brings them to a place of understanding themselves better than they ever thought that would. Silk and Sword is a great story for enemies to lovers with a little bit of spice.

⭐️ ⭐️/5
🌶️/5


Review posted on GoodReads 15th September 2022.


A sweet and cute, sapphic, fantasy romance; but the writing lets it down.

Silk and Sword follows Petronilla and Acelina’s story set in the country of Inferno where angels, demons, humans and half-humans live in relative peace. Petronilla is the Lieutenant General of the army – straight-laced with a difficult past. Sent a mission, Petronilla stays at the most famous pleasure house in Inferno, forcing her to spend time with her nemesis, and the madame of the establishment, Acelina.

What follows is their relationship developing and deepening, overcoming internal and external tribulations until they have to make a decision about how much they need love and each other.

There were aspects of the book I enjoyed. The writer ensures early that we, the reader, care about her characters. Petronilla experiences a sort-of betrayal in the very first chapter and I found myself so angry on her behalf. Throughout, I cared about both women and about their relationship. We see many little moments and conversations that makes their relationship believable.

There was a small amount of spice in the book which was well-written, if a little rushed. I think this could have been more prominent.

The whole book is body-positive which I really appreciated. In particular, it wasn’t ‘scream in your face’ body positive; it just positively notes on multiple occasions that a person has fat on their body. Its subtle and really quite lovely.

However, there are other things which I did not enjoy, and these were mainly down to the writing style and the point-of-view. Throughout, for me, the writing could have flowed better; it was often clunky and awkward. The writer’s use of imagery was cliché and bland: “pulling her off the ground like she was a bag of potatoes”, “her eyes were obsidian, reflecting Petronilla’s hate”, “she sometimes looked like a pole” and “their lips needed each other like oxygen”.

Also, this is, I think, supposed to be a dual POV third-person narrative story. However, on multiple occasions, the POV is confused i.e. the narrator “being inside” the wrong characters head. The reason dual POV is so enticing and remains so popular, is that we get miscommunication in which the reader is omniscient. The narrator should never be omniscient in this style of book. This took me out of the story at so many points I lost count.

Other technical aspects which were poorly done, in my opinion, were sentence structure and paragraph structure. The writer also uses adverbs and adjectives as a crutch to try and hold up the less developed parts of their writing skill.

Overall, this story has so much potential. The romance is cute, steamy and believable. The world is pretty cool and there is more to explore there in subsequent books. It was let down by a writing style that does not appeal to me and technical issues I struggled to see past.

This was an engaging read from a new author. The enemies-to-lovers storyline was done really well, and the chemistry between the two main characters was palpable from the start even as they were insulting one another. Their little quips were fun to read. Petronilla was an intriguing and relatable character with a well-developed backstory. Some more background on Acelina would have helped. I felt the relationship moved a little too fast to be believable but overall I enjoyed the book. There were some typos and a number of continuity errors (like a character being in a bathtub one second and against a wall the next), but these are probably because it was a review copy.

Silk and Sword by P.S. Scott.

Thank you Netgallery and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for an ARC for an unbiased review.

This was, as suggested in the synopsis, a enemies to lovers trope.
It was done well, and made for a believable premise.
Petronilla's past is also interlinked with the present in more ways than one, and it enabled us to see facets of her character come through in different ways.

Whilst we saw Acelina's past reflected in the story, including how it might shape the present or future as a result, it wasn't as detailed for me. I personally would have perhaps liked a little more detail on who Acelina was. This is a small quibble, and a personal preference. But that is why I will be saying 4/5 stars. Some might not see it reason enough knock a star off.

There are aspects for possible trigger warnings on abuse, especially for Petronilla's past, but it isn't done in a gratuitous manner, and fits perfectly into her actions and story. But just be aware of it being there.

I would certainly like to see a 2nd book to witness how Acelina and Petronilla's life continues. I feel there is enough to continue their story, and I'd like to see how their lives progress with some serious upcoming changes to them both, individually and together, even though the book wrapped up on an ending that could be a standalone.

Overall a solid enough story I enjoyed. I am happy to give 4/5 stars 🌟

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
🗡️👩🏻‍🤝‍👩🏼✉️🌈

Enemies to lovers alright. These two can't stand each other. The hate bouncing between the two was undeniable. Little quips here and there, little acts of revenge to annoy each other. But despite all that, the sexual tension was still there. Despite all the hate and misunderstanding of each other, both couldn't help but fall in love, and the way it was done was believable and amazing.

The back story and fear of intimacy for Petronilla, and how she got through it was amazing to see, because of my own experiences. I hope I can't through it, like her.

I loved the rest of the storyline and the ending was heart-warming. Hopefully, there is book 2 to read to follow Petronilla and Acelina's story, cause if there is, I can't wait to read it.

Thank you Netgalley and PS Scott for a copy of the eBook in exchange for an honest review.