A review by dogearredpage
Silver in the Blood by Jessica Day George

1.0

This story had a lot of promise but didn't deliver. As a school librarian I jump on books like this-with a setting that is unique and basically untouched in novels for kids this age. Nineteenth century Romania could lend itself to a complex historical novel laced with a bit of the fantastic but this mostly read like a clear set up for a sequel. The diary entries and letters are incongruous and give a flippant air to the seriousness of the rest of the story. Also, from an educators viewpoint the sudden use of an extremely high level vocabulary word or phrase (i.e. de rigueur) is confusing to the reader. Finally, perhaps most frustrating to me was the intriguing title being left completely unexplained, even a hint would have been appreciated!