Review: Silver

Amazon  

As the enforcer for the Roanoke werewolf packs, Andrew keeps the area safe from lone wolves invading their territory. But there’s something wrong with the strange lone he’s hunting at the opening of SILVER (Amazon). She only runs in human form, she runs seemingly directionless, and she smells sick with silver. When he catches up with her, Andrew doesn’t find what he’s expecting: instead of a lone who needs expulsion from pack lands, he finds a woman who needs protection.

Suddenly Andrew finds himself on a mission to hunt the monster who hurt the woman who calls herself Silver. The monster killed her entire pack, and Andrew wants to keep that from happening again.

Despite being a debut novel, SILVER by Rhiannon Held, holds its own in the Urban Fantasy genre by twisting a usually standard plot into something that feels new. She starts the story at a sprint and maintains a great pace throughout, leaving enough time for us to get to know the people and the Were culture.

Andrew and Silver are the PoV characters. Andrew is your typical dominant werewolf with anger management issues and a dead wife (not his fault but he feels guilty). It’s Silver who’s interesting and Held tells her PoV with style. You see, she’s been injected with silver, and it’s made her a little crazy. She sees Death in wolf form and talks to him and he talks back; she can’t find her ‘wild self’; and is fleeing to escape a monster who’s following her. She doesn’t make sense to Andrew… at first.

The fun thing about SILVER is how Held explores Were pack hierarchy–well, in her own world, anyway. I’ve read enough werewolf books to see different takes on how it would work, but Held tries to show the nuances of dominance vs leadership. Sometimes I was confused at how she chose to show how pack structure works, but it’s still a good study, nonetheless. There are some vague hints at the difference in the U.S. vs European were packs, as well as how packs operate in relation to each other and regarding new wolves. We don’t see much of the magic of werewolves, if there is any (one of the things I like about Patricia Briggs’ two werewolf series are her details of how the magic works).

There are a few blips in the plot and there are some contrivances, but Held carries you along so they aren’t particularly distracting. And she doesn’t disappoint, because by the end she brings together all the plot threads to a satisfying conclusion.