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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
slow-paced
This is a Swan-Lake retelling based on Celtic mythology. If you liked the cruel prince because it had a healthy dose of real fae folk, you’ll LOVE this Romantasy!
This is kind of a reverse retelling in my opinion. Because we have Eala who is the actual Sean princess, and Fia who is the adopted daughter who is the black sheep of her family. The imagery through this book nods respectfully to the original Swan Lake ballet, as well as a few nods to the cartoon movie from 1994.
Because of the traditional Celtic roots, there are a lot of non English words used through this book which made some aspects of the book hard to follow. The author does provide a glossary, but reading it on ebook made acceding the glossary a hastle.
Fia is a changeling. She doesn’t belong to either the Fae or Human realm, but feels most loyal to her adoptive mother. As she works to complete a difficult task given by her mother, Fia starts to uncover the mystery of her fae half.
Fia has been told by a young age that her “greenmark” is something to keep hidden. She has always had a love of plants and green things, and she doesn’t want to hide parts of herself anymore.
I cannot explain how much I deeply despised Rogan. He is such a spoiled and annoying prince. He doesn’t understand Fia’s desire to be chosen and loved for who and what she is. He says he loves her and then turns around and asks her to try and control her power.
Fia shouldn’t have to hold back her powers, and Rogan shouldn’t make her feel like she has to!
I liked the profession of Fia and Irian’s relationship. It was enemies to reluctant friends to lovers. And they are only able to see each other once every month. Fia has to work through her feelings for her best friend before she can give her heart to Irian.
Irian reminded me of Howl so much! He’s quiet and broody and has a mysterious thing for feathers.
This is kind of a reverse retelling in my opinion. Because we have Eala who is the actual Sean princess, and Fia who is the adopted daughter who is the black sheep of her family. The imagery through this book nods respectfully to the original Swan Lake ballet, as well as a few nods to the cartoon movie from 1994.
Because of the traditional Celtic roots, there are a lot of non English words used through this book which made some aspects of the book hard to follow. The author does provide a glossary, but reading it on ebook made acceding the glossary a hastle.
Fia is a changeling. She doesn’t belong to either the Fae or Human realm, but feels most loyal to her adoptive mother. As she works to complete a difficult task given by her mother, Fia starts to uncover the mystery of her fae half.
Fia has been told by a young age that her “greenmark” is something to keep hidden. She has always had a love of plants and green things, and she doesn’t want to hide parts of herself anymore.
I cannot explain how much I deeply despised Rogan. He is such a spoiled and annoying prince. He doesn’t understand Fia’s desire to be chosen and loved for who and what she is. He says he loves her and then turns around and asks her to try and control her power.
Fia shouldn’t have to hold back her powers, and Rogan shouldn’t make her feel like she has to!
I liked the profession of Fia and Irian’s relationship. It was enemies to reluctant friends to lovers. And they are only able to see each other once every month. Fia has to work through her feelings for her best friend before she can give her heart to Irian.
Irian reminded me of Howl so much! He’s quiet and broody and has a mysterious thing for feathers.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
adventurous
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
thank you to Netgalley, Orbit, and Lyra Selene for providing this arc in exchange for an honest review!
if you like whimsical gothic books with vibes of like grimm’s fairytales and irish/celtic folklore and things like:
- shadow daddy
- first aid/healing
- love triangle
- i wrote you letters
- would let world burn for her
- sorta 3rd act break up (it worked i didn’t hate it at all)
- self control / restraint (like i’ll wait bc i want all of you vibes)
- enemies to lovers
- lost princess vibes
- morally gray love interest
- creepy women
then i think you will LOVE this book and i recommend it
———
this review contains mild spoilers but nothing major i promise :)
this is gonna be a long review so buckle up… i have alot of thoughts both good and not so good
i’m gonna start on a positive note tho :)
the relationship between Fia and Rogan was super interested once i got more invested in their characters.. Fia’s feelings about him are so complex and nuanced and it was amazing to see her self-acceptance/self-love journey reflected in how those feelings shift thru out the book
i really loved how Rogan didn’t like her magic and in their romantic moments he had small reactions of distrust snd i loved that there was never a big blow up about her magic and instead she realizes that’s not how he should react to something that is intrinsic to her — one of the best quotes from the book was…
“But if love demands alteration to exist, is it even love at all?”
Rogan’s reactions are foiled by Irian’s and i loved how the romance complemented Fia’s journey toward self-acceptance
WHICH BTW was the absolutely HIGHLIGHT of the book to follow Fia’s journey from distrust and hatred toward fae (despite sorta being one herself)
i especially loved how that is reflected in her use of magic and views of the fae land
i ALSO loved that the love triangle while Fia was never really all that conflicted about like who to love romantically she was genuinely conflicted about her loyalties and like platonic love vs romantic love (esp during the final conflicts/3rd act)
i was also obsessed with the whimsy the sprite in the fort named Corra adds like she might have been my favorite character it add alot to the down moments between the full moons
OKAY and then the shadow daddy himself IRIAN i was obsessed with him from the start like when he was introduced i was like okay lyra IM SAT now
and then when him and fia struck their bargain for stories i was obsessed with that as a way for them to be vulnerable and share truths about themselves it was super unique and i loved it
okay so… the not so positive stuff…
there was so much about this book i was obsessed but there were some glaring things that caused me to struggle thru reading it esp like the first half
1. i felt like the author took for granted what i knew about irish/celtic folklore and like words so i felt very thrown to the wolves in a sense bc i had no clue what she was saying with these different foreign words which had me looking up stuff a ton and like im fine with that but when its taking me out of the story constantly i feel like there’s not enough world building explanation happening
2. the introduction of Rogan was odd for me bc again it felt like i was supposed to be more invested in them and be like into their relationship right away but eventually i did get there later in the book.. like i felt like that person who is on the outside of an inside joke like confused but playing along
3. it felt like too much time was spent on the first relationship like things started progressing with Irian at like 60% and they progressed fast so a lot of times i felt like i was missing scenes to make the progression make the most sense.. like i wanted more from this relationship and less from rogan
like i was so conflicted bc like this book felt too long and too short at times
4. the ending was good but honestly i have no clue wtf happened (hopefully that’s the point as a set up for book 2) given that we were in fia’s head it was kinda frustrating to not understand what happened
5. overall the story feel a bit disjointed bc it focused primarily on the full moon nights they went to the fae lands so it felt like the story was like isolated incidents sometimes instead of an arc (even tho it was definitely an arc it just didn’t … ig … flow…)
again like i said in the beginning i really really enjoyed a lot of aspects of this book and will 100% be reading the second book
if you like whimsical gothic books with vibes of like grimm’s fairytales and irish/celtic folklore and things like:
- shadow daddy
- first aid/healing
- love triangle
- i wrote you letters
- would let world burn for her
- sorta 3rd act break up (it worked i didn’t hate it at all)
- self control / restraint (like i’ll wait bc i want all of you vibes)
- enemies to lovers
- lost princess vibes
- morally gray love interest
- creepy women
then i think you will LOVE this book and i recommend it
———
this review contains mild spoilers but nothing major i promise :)
this is gonna be a long review so buckle up… i have alot of thoughts both good and not so good
i’m gonna start on a positive note tho :)
the relationship between Fia and Rogan was super interested once i got more invested in their characters.. Fia’s feelings about him are so complex and nuanced and it was amazing to see her self-acceptance/self-love journey reflected in how those feelings shift thru out the book
i really loved how Rogan didn’t like her magic and in their romantic moments he had small reactions of distrust snd i loved that there was never a big blow up about her magic and instead she realizes that’s not how he should react to something that is intrinsic to her — one of the best quotes from the book was…
“But if love demands alteration to exist, is it even love at all?”
Rogan’s reactions are foiled by Irian’s and i loved how the romance complemented Fia’s journey toward self-acceptance
WHICH BTW was the absolutely HIGHLIGHT of the book to follow Fia’s journey from distrust and hatred toward fae (despite sorta being one herself)
i especially loved how that is reflected in her use of magic and views of the fae land
i ALSO loved that the love triangle while Fia was never really all that conflicted about like who to love romantically she was genuinely conflicted about her loyalties and like platonic love vs romantic love (esp during the final conflicts/3rd act)
i was also obsessed with the whimsy the sprite in the fort named Corra adds like she might have been my favorite character it add alot to the down moments between the full moons
OKAY and then the shadow daddy himself IRIAN i was obsessed with him from the start like when he was introduced i was like okay lyra IM SAT now
and then when him and fia struck their bargain for stories i was obsessed with that as a way for them to be vulnerable and share truths about themselves it was super unique and i loved it
okay so… the not so positive stuff…
there was so much about this book i was obsessed but there were some glaring things that caused me to struggle thru reading it esp like the first half
1. i felt like the author took for granted what i knew about irish/celtic folklore and like words so i felt very thrown to the wolves in a sense bc i had no clue what she was saying with these different foreign words which had me looking up stuff a ton and like im fine with that but when its taking me out of the story constantly i feel like there’s not enough world building explanation happening
2. the introduction of Rogan was odd for me bc again it felt like i was supposed to be more invested in them and be like into their relationship right away but eventually i did get there later in the book.. like i felt like that person who is on the outside of an inside joke like confused but playing along
3. it felt like too much time was spent on the first relationship like things started progressing with Irian at like 60% and they progressed fast so a lot of times i felt like i was missing scenes to make the progression make the most sense.. like i wanted more from this relationship and less from rogan
like i was so conflicted bc like this book felt too long and too short at times
4. the ending was good but honestly i have no clue wtf happened (hopefully that’s the point as a set up for book 2) given that we were in fia’s head it was kinda frustrating to not understand what happened
5. overall the story feel a bit disjointed bc it focused primarily on the full moon nights they went to the fae lands so it felt like the story was like isolated incidents sometimes instead of an arc (even tho it was definitely an arc it just didn’t … ig … flow…)
again like i said in the beginning i really really enjoyed a lot of aspects of this book and will 100% be reading the second book
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Lyra Selene is truly a master of prose, eloquently written. I enjoyed this reimagining of Swan Lake and how the author melds a story that is not only unique but harkens to the story portrayed in the original folk tales and ballet. This was a slow paced book for me until the last few chapters. The slow pace I feel was intended to world build but it felt flat. I felt the character development of the main character, Fia, was choppy and stuttered. The last few chapters tho were intense and had me stunned. I am very interested to see what A Crown so Silver has in store for Fia and Irian.