Breakaway Books

Authored by Callie Hart; Published June 2024; Fantasy/Romance

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️

If you have read Sarah J. Mass’s ACOTAR series, you will be very familiar with the fae that feature in Quicksilver. Thanks to Maas’s enormous success, it seems that readers will be getting an education in fae mythology for the next several years. But, to me at least, Quicksilver lacked some of ACOTAR’s magical ability to capture my attention.

Quicksilver follows the story of Saeris, an impoverished girl who is kidnapped from her world to the world of the fae, at the point of her execution. A gruff fae male with a dark past, Kingfisher, becomes her constant companion as Saeris learns to control her newfound powers of alchemy. 

There were some captivating elements to this story—the titular quicksilver among the most interesting. The way it is used, how Saeris interacts with it, and its connections to the world’s gods are all unique features that I haven’t encountered before. Saeris learning to work with the material is easily one of my favorite parts of the book.

The romance was much harder for me. Kingfisher did not strike me as an attractive or, frankly, good partner, and it seems like he and Saeris jumped directly from sniping at each other to sleeping together, without any growth of affection in between. In terms of secondary characters, while I grew attached to some of their band of warriors, especially Ren, others were forgettable and unlikeable. I wish I had felt the warmth of the camaraderie among them.

As with many fantasy novels, the villains were predictable and at times flat. Again, I wish there was a little more to them to understand why they have put their kingdom through years of pain and suffering.

Overall, it’s a good book to pick up for lovers of the fae, and it will certainly transport you away from the mundane concerns of this world! But, if you don’t crave romantasy, you can skip this one.