Review by tyras_bookshelf - Quicksilver

tyras_bookshelf 's review for:

Quicksilver by Callie Hart

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I had so much fun!

I wasn’t feeling great about it at first but by the time my loan expired and had to wait for this book for several weeks, I was very invested. So maybe the waiting is swaying my review a bit but this was a great book!

The story starts out in a rough and tumble desert civilization crushed under the power of an undying despot but we’re quickly swept up into a fae war on a different world, similarly in the grips of an undying evil maniac.

We have a strong, caring female lead—that’s not 19 thank goodness—and her sole focus is survival in her terrible world. All she wants to do is live her best life and take care of her egg-head brother. She’s got so much duty on her shoulders from a young age and buckle up, because it only gets worse. I think she was really interesting from her sword skills and motivation for violence, to her fiery spirit in every situation. Girl is funny and deserves the world. I am a Saeris Fane fan.

She has this whole accidental chosen one thing going on when she pulls a sword from a pool of quicksilver (mystical, mercury stuff) and Kingfisher, as we come to know and love, rescues her.

Now mostly his deal is quicksilver madness and a bad temper. His magic—super cool shadow daddy stuff—only makes him more interesting as a main character because it’s such an epic collection of powers. He’s grumpy (again quicksilver madness but also fighting against one’s destiny for thousands of years will do that to you) but I love that his true character is revealed as we get deeper into the story. And it’s not just because of his love interest, we see him soften slowly because of his friends and true family too. It’s precious.

And they start out hating each other bc he’s so gruff and rude and she wants nothing more than to get back to her brother. I guess you’d call it enemies to lovers but people have strong feelings about that if the leads don’t literally want to kill each other. I would call it that though and I shall. Enemies to reluctant partners to lovers to soulmates. The tension is everything.

They slowly come to an understanding of each other and the trust builds (nevermind that blood oath is a really big deal at first). Then the respect and then (my favorite part) the realization that Fisher can’t fight his fate and suddenly she’s “the moon” and “the oxygen” and “the most sacred” and honestly if a man doesn’t look at me like I hung the stars, put him back in the bucket.

As much as I’m a fan of Saeris and Kingfisher by themselves, I’m an even bigger fan of them together.

I saw the mate thing coming from a mile away and loved every second. But to find out that his mom was an oracle and saw them together way before it came to pass but even more importantly that the god of chaos changed her path so that Saeris would be born human.

It was almost too much.

What I didn’t see coming was how important Carrion’s character would become and I think book two will hinge on his bloodline thing more.

I didn’t fully get why it was important for him to be the son of the last king—like last fae king or human king? Idk, but

either way I’m ready to see him lead an army into battle against Belikan or Madra or both bc they suck.

I will have nightmares about the Labryinth

and I cheered out loud when Saeris killed Malcom bc hate that guy.

This thing was stuffed full of twists and important little things you might miss if you were reading too fast. But there were a few plot points that felt unnecessarily long at times like Lorreth’s entire 16 bar ballad about Fisher or all that drama with homegirl that lost her hand for touching the newly remade sword. Not all the time, obviously, but at times it felt like Hart was trying to fit too much into one book. I mean it’s 600 pages, sister put a lot in here.

And there are still so many unanswered questions!

This book was a wild ride to say the least.

I only hesitate to read the next one bc I know we still have to face those other tyrants but I really want to see Fisher and Sareis grow closer

as she figures out this new queen stuff because of course she’s a queen now. Why not?!

But three projected books!? Idk man.

Good read, do recommend. Only not giving it a 5 bc I was distracted by some of the word choice and think we could have saved a 100 or so pages with some stronger editing. Also, per my own scale, I can’t call this a 5 bc I will not be re-reading—entirely too massive to undertake again.

Content Warnings