phoenixfaie's reviews
433 reviews

I am so disappointed. This has been on my TBR since it was released - I even have one of the Waterstones special editions signed with sprayed edges. 
Anyway, the premise of this was good, I was excited to *eventually* get round to reading it, but it just fell short, I didn't like the writing style when it came to Leon's chapters, there was something so robotic about it I was put off by the comments about characters being "chubby"- was that even necessary, especially when a couple of them were in regards to a child! 
The awkward eventual meeting in the bathroom was cute, maybe a touch predictable, but it worked for this novel, The ending was, im not sure how 1 feel about it, yes it was cute to keep the post it notes going but proposing that way? It would have been better to have the scavenger hunt go on a little longer and then the last note on the door of the hotel room to be something like "I have something to ask you" then when Tiffy opened the door Leon could be on one knee instead of just sitting on the bed. 

 I was provided an E-ARC by netgalley, all opinions are my own. 

After being a fan of Laura's work for quite some time I was so excited when she announced that she was publishing her first adult fantasy novel, of course as soon as I heard that this was available to request on netgalley I jumped at the chance, so when I received the approval email I was over the moon. 
 

"She was a powerful mage with her own agency, and she would not fall into step like leashed animal." 

Silvercloak is a high stakes fantasy, with a unique magic system- imagine having magic being fuelled by both pleasure and pain. 
 Pleasure restores magic but pain enhances and amplifies it.
 Now I will say that there is a LOT of world building and lore but I do think that if you stick with it; Silvercloak could definitely be a top Fantasy contender this year, I am already anticipating the cosplay outfits. 

Silvercloak starts off with our main Character Saffron as a young child witnessing the brutal murder of her parents. 

As Saffron grows up her desire for Revenge on the killers who murdered her parents only grows. 
 As a publicly disgraced former silvercloak academy Mage on a secret mission, Saffron is able to infiltrate the Bloodcloaks due to her immunity to magic and compulsion. 

While Saffron may be immune to magic, she is not immune to humanity and does at first struggle with her first act as a Bloodcloak, however Saffron knows she must do whatever it takes, including finding a way to get closer to the man she is prophesied to kill... what she didn't expect was to fall for him. 

Silvercloak is dark and gritty, with gore, addiction, pleasurehouses, self injury, self harm (to a degree) betrayal, angst, murder, enemies to lovers, corrupt power, Rare magic, secrets, lies, lots of world building and lore. 

"Love was complicated, and pain was complicated, and believing you deserved to hurt was complicated." 

I honestly loved Silvercloak and I cannot wait for the sequel. 

It was a quick read at just short of 200 pages, this is the kind of book you can read within a few hours if you are relaxing by the pool on holiday or curled up on the sofa. 
The only thing that lost points was that the dialogue felt stilted at times, so I did have to reread sentences a couple of times before it clicked. 

I will be honest, I purchased this purely based on the cover; as a disabled individual, I think it is so important to see representation in media. 
I appreciated that the author didn't try to "fix" Decans disability. He learned to live with it and adapt his life. Of course, we had moments where you can see that Decan doesn't like his disability- but that is something that a lot of people who become disabled later in life will experience and understand. 

Not only did we have disability representation in Decan, but we also had plus sized representation in the form of our FMC Hope. 

With the support from one another, both Hope and Decan learned to appreciate who they are as individuals. From the very beginning, neither one would push the other into something they weren't comfortable with- communication and consent is key. 

Just a quick fyi- the physical copy does contain some nsfw artwork that is not included with the digital copy. 

Also, while this is completely unrelated to the story, they are something that the author included- 
1. The contents page actually has a little chilli indicating which chapters contain spice 
2. The bloopers towards the end of the book was such a fun inclusion, I did end up chuckling at some of the typos. 

I will be checking out Lemon Cake by this author as that also features a disabled main character.

Honestly, I loved the idea of this, I like to live vicariously through fictional characters, and when I saw the synopsis for this, it had my attention straight away. 

While this is quite steamy, and I enjoyed some of the dirty talk, this just didn't quite hit the mark. 

I knew this was a novella so I wasn't expecting in depth back stories for the characters, but they just felt flat, the author went into more detail with the most random things and they didn't add to the story at all. 

Also, with the name of this novella, I was expecting Anne to actually take the two of them together, not one after the other (but that might just be an unpopular opinion). 

I think that this has the potential to be a good one-handed read, but it's missing the spark.

Honestly this was embarrassing... the dialogue, the names, everything about it was just bad

For a novella, this was quite a cute and spicy read. 
I will say that it could have done with another round of edits as there were a couple of typos throughout and the odd missed word. 
I did like the fact that this wasn't set in a specific town or university, it makes it easy for readers to envision their own town/university and maybe remember their own experiences... although I can definitely say that, unfortunately, I still haven't experienced a why choose situation. 
I will be keeping an eye out for the sequel as I am quite intrigued as to how the relationship will progress... especially with a certain neighbour making herself known.

2.5/5
This definitely had a promising concept but it just didn't deliver. 
211 pages that honestly dragged. 
There was far too much POV swapping in chapters, too many random flashbacks without informing the reader that you were in a flashback/past. 
The characters felt flat and all unlikeable. 
Also I'm sorry but I do find it a little bit odd that a 20-odd year old man was wanting to keep his friendship with a completely random14 year old girl to himself, there was no thought about how that could be perceived to anyone- imagine these characters are real, would you really be ok with a 14 year old (who you are supposed to be looking after) hanging around a 20-odd year old that you have never met? 
Despite having potential this just wasn't it for me.