Quicksilver by Callie Hart

Jen reviews Quicksilver, the first book in the Fae & Alchemy romantasy series by Callie Hart.

Do not touch the sword. Do not turn the key. Do not open the gate.

In the land of the unforgiving desert, there isn’t much a girl wouldn’t do for a glass of water.

Twenty-four-year-old Saeris Fane is good at keeping secrets. No one knows about the strange powers she possesses, or the fact that she has been picking pockets and stealing from the Undying Queen’s reservoirs for as long as she can remember.

But a secret is like a knot. Sooner or later, it is bound to come undone.

When Saeris comes face-to-face with Death himself, she inadvertently re-opens a gateway between realms and is transported to a land of ice and snow. The Fae have always been the stuff of myth, of legend, of nightmares… but it turns out they’re real, and Saeris has landed herself in the middle of a centuries-long conflict that might just get her killed.

The first of her kind to tread the frozen mountains of Yvelia in over a thousand years, Saeris mistakenly binds herself to Kingfisher, a handsome Fae warrior, who has secrets and nefarious agendas of his own. He will use her Alchemist’s magic to protect his people, no matter what it costs him . . . or her.

Death has a name. It is Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate. His past is murky. His attitude stinks. And he’s the only way Saeris is going to make it home.

“The liquid metal erupted underneath me, the silver slopping over the sides of what was now clearly a circular pool. Freed from its hold and with nothing to keep me up any longer, I toppled sideways onto the stone steps, a snapping sensation jolting me, though I mercifully felt no pain.

My vision was going at last. Blackness crept in, rolling before my eyes like a midnight fog. Only it wasn’t a fog. It was something else. It was…

Death. The bastard had come to claim me in person.”

Wherever You Will Go by The Calling

Amazon has been recommending Quicksilver to me left, right, and center, and I guess it worked because here I am. Actually a little of what brought me here too, was the Fourth Wing’s popularity reminding me I haven’t catered to the romance side of my reading in a while. I sampled both books, and chose Quicksilver for two reasons – I liked the voice better and I’m a sucker for Fae romances.

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The book’s summary does its job, so I’ll assume you’ve read that and move on to say, I enjoyed this for being exactly what I expected and hoped for and maybe even a bit more, since I found the writing swift and accessible, though wordier than needed at times.

I really liked the leads! Whether I root for the leads or not, will sink a book like this quicker than the Titanic.

As I mentioned above, Saeris has a good fun voice. I enjoyed her character quite a bit. She’s rather sassy but soft when needed. Her being twenty-four helped in allowing me extra space for her thoughts and abilities to be more believable… or at least helped in the handy-waving of reason away. To be frank, I’m here to escape the daily grind and enjoy the story, so that means I can buy a lot.

The Kingfisher is one of those stand-offish misunderstood Alpha-males. He’s exactly the type I love – broody, and a little possessive. He comes across hard (no pun intended) on the exterior, but has a soft mushy inside… at least where the people he cares about are concerned.

I also greatly enjoyed the surrounding cast of characters (esp Carrion, and Everlayne) and was a little disappointed to see the next book does not follow the romance world series trend of one of the other surrounding characters finding love, but seems to be a continuation of this same couple.
That might be why I assumed this was YA (it’s definitely not YA) since I feel like YA fantasy couples tend to come together over a series.

Anyway, I could be wrong about this, so don’t quote me. And if I am, someone please let me know because I’ll likely not continue otherwise. (In case you’re wondering why I wouldn’t continue, when by all accounts I enjoyed this one, I’m all about the chase and lose interest in the couple once they’re together.)

Quicksilver has some great lore mixed throughout the story. Ever since I read Karen Marie Moning’s Highlander books years ago, as I said above, I have become a complete sucker for the fae in stories, so of course I pretty much ate all that up with a spoon.

I liked too that although there are a lot of things here that I’ve seen in other stories, they’re not put together quite the same way. I was enjoying the creativity with the familiar, while marvelling at the sheer number of tropes catered to in this story…everything from the usual – girl-who-is-special-in-some-way-that’s-important-to-the-story (and to him), to Godswords (ok this maybe only something I’ve seen in straight up fantasy but I have been away from romance for awhile).
Heck, she even has a pet side-kick (in this case a fox, thankfully giving the tired go-to of wolves a break).

I did have a moment of Vampires… Why did it have to be vampires? I’m not keen on the vampire trope as a romance thing at all, and the use of “the male” or “the female” to emphasize the fact they weren’t human (I am assuming) nearly drove me nuts.
Thankfully we didn’t have a lot of biting and blood-play because that’s a blech for this reader! I do like vamps as bad guys though, and we did get a very nasty vampire villain that I could enjoy hating.

Seriously though, the trope bucket was spilling over the brim here, so if you’re looking for something in particular, you’ll find it because I am pretty sure there isn’t a single one left for book two…

Oh wait! There is one left, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find that our trio of Fisher, Saeris, and Carrion, evolve from love triangle to pack (if vampires pack up) and we have some poly-love in the next book. Someone will have to let me know if I am right.

TLDR:

I have to admit for the most part, Quicksilver was a pretty fun book! It has some great lore – love the Godsword angle. It’s kind of typical romance with lots of building tension and steamy sex, but there’s lots of action/fights etc. too. I enjoyed the characters (all of them) and there were some nice relationships between them, and the humour was nicely balanced.

It was little bit wordy and could’ve done with another round of cuts for repetition (I mean how many times do we need to know Carrion’s hair color in one chapter?) but all-in-all not bad, considering there’s vampires… Joking!