Book: Silk & Iron by Alexis Calder
Reviewed by Books and Bad Ideas (Jamie)
Rating: 4/5
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Thank you so much to the author for the chance to review this book and I'm sorry it happened after release day, but January and February are bonkers for ARC reading!
Silk & Iron by Alexis Calder is a dark romantasy that follows the main character, Taylin, who is masquerading as the princess of Iskavaland, Sabina Volkov. What begins as a simple espionage mission that Taylin has no expectations of surviving turns into a confusing game of three truths and a lie when she doesn't know who to trust anymore: the crown prince, who oscillates from charming to cruel and back to charming again? The enforcer, Lord Brevan Maxwell, who carries his past like the scars on his flesh? Her ex, Lee, who begged her to do this in the first place? Or can none of them be trusted after all?
The part of this novel that I enjoyed the most was the mythology and lore behind magic and the whole reason that the emperor has Caiden marrying Sabina in the first place: a prophecy. I could see the ties to Egyptian mythology, as well as Celtic and Norse mythology, and I enjoyed seeing how a fantasy world took those elements and changed them into a cohesive mega-myth that structured the whole world.
I also liked the whole premise that felt very much like Marie Antoinette/ Catherine the Great meets assassin. The princess is dead, but one rose in her place. It seemed like it had intense potential to make Sabina/Taylin into a people's hero, but with the way the plot was structured, she was severely hampered in her ability to be that hero. Toward the end of the novel, she stepped into her own a little more, but the romance plot of the book ultimately ended up hindering her capabilities.
Which leads me to the part of the novel that was the hardest for me to get past: the romances. The relationship with Caiden was weird. One minute, he's giving her a nickname. The next, he's trying to unalive her with his magic. Then he's all cool again. While I get the morally grey MMC tropes, this one seemed to swing so quickly between one extreme and the other that I wasn't sure where we were supposed to fall on loving/hating their relationship: do we root for it or do we hope for something else? Then, the relationship with Brevan dances in from off screen and while I had great hope for it-- I love a guard x royalty storyline like the next chaos gremlin-- the spice that resulted was just... mechanical. It was very lackluster compared to what I had hoped for. I get that romantasy readers expect spice, but I would have personally been okay with it being closed door or not existing at all.
Putting aside the romances which were both confusing and somewhat unfulfilling-- particularly seeing as Brevan makes himself out to be the understanding type and then just isn't-- this book was an interesting read. The themes of rebellion, of trying to resist, of trying to save your people are all things that resonate loudly in the sociopolitical environment of 2026. I'll be interested to see where this book goes next and how the lore and prophecy develop now that the plot has taken a sudden turn for the weird and wonderful. If you like Marie Antoinette but really want her to be an assassin instead of a queen stuck in a monarchy doomed to fall, or you want to see how the peasant pretending at being a queen becomes more of a queen than those born to the royal bloodlines, I recommend reading this book and perhaps the ones that will follow in the series.