Thursday, August 30, 2012

Review: Silver by Rhiannon Held


My review of the new novel Silver is up at the magazine New Myths. And yes, there's a few typos, but hey, at least it's just a few. Here's the first half of the review:
Writers like Patricia Briggs and Kelley Armstrong have taught us that wolf pack politics is a tricky thing—one part subtle machinations and two parts brute force. Rhiannon Held continues in this tradition with her debut novel Silver.
The urban fantasy Silver has a certain grit and intelligence to it which is apparent from the get-go. Someone has performed unspeakable acts of experimentation and torture on an entire pack of werewolves, systematically burning them with silver and injecting it into their veins. The only werewolf to escape is a young woman who’s retreated so far into herself, she can’t recall her own name and adopts the moniker Silver. Andrew Dare, a pack enforcer, tracks Silver down when she crosses his pack’s territory. Andrew expects to have to meet the stray werewolf with violence and threats, instead he meets the half-crazy, rambling, injured Silver, which sets Andrew down the track of finding the person who hurt her and killed her pack. But first he has to find out who Silver really is and where she came from. Read the second half of the review...

Short version: I liked Silver. Is this novel going to revolutionize urban fantasy? Probably not. But it's an interesting new chapter in personable-but-aggressive werewolf fiction.

[Silver by Rhiannon Held came out from Tor, June 2012. I received a complimentary advanced proof via New Myths to complete this review.]

Highly Recommended