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** spoiler alert ** 3/5

A few weeks ago, a friend and I went to a romance bookstore that had just opened up downtown. Quicksilver was everywhere. I'm talking several stacks of it that were displayed throughout the store. Initially, I wrote it off since my tastes don't always align with that of the wider BookTok audience. However, I decided to pick it up and went to our dear old friend, Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. Sitting pretty at a 4.4, it piqued my interest. However, it was the positive reviews of people I trust yet hadn't expected that had me adding it to my cart.

This has a lot of the elements that are popular in Romantasy books. It's drawing a lot of comparison to ACOTAR which tonally I see. However, this does do some unique things that I enjoyed. My main issues with this were actually with the popular Romantasy tropes and the general romance in the book.

The beginning of the book hooked me. I loved the desert scene and initial set-up to the world that I thought we'd be seeing more of. However, we were quickly whisked away with our heroine. Each of the settings felt like this: cool, initial concept but no immersion. It was like a work trip or cruise-here is little bit of time in each place before going somewhere else.

The characters were very ACOTAR/2016 YA Fantasy coded. Not going to lie, I'm kind of over 1000-year-old beings talking like dudes I would overhear at a sports bar. Saeris needed more simmering time. She's brash, headstrong, has a little bit of swagger, a smart lady in STEM, a badass warrior, and an incredible thief supposedly. This is all great, but sometimes her actions didn't always align with the image that we were painted. The overall romance development didn't make sense with her character either (it should have been a slower burn). Overall, though, I did really enjoy her as a heroine, and she wasn't annoying which is a W.

I was into Kingfisher. He definitely felt like Rhys when he was in his cunty era mixed with Cassian. At least, in the beginning. I'm also over when characters follow the "I was just trying to get you to hate me, I actually loved you the whole time" vibe. In this case he did kind of hate her so there's that, but idk this is just boring to me. Either do a proper hate-to-love or don't even bother tbh. Going that route just leads to them losing their bite. Let them be terrible assholes and let me see some proper growth.

This leads me to the romance development. Our love interests had great chemistry. I was blushing and turning the volume down on my airpods. What's wild to me is that this book is 600+ pages long and the relationship felt rushed. It was lust-bang-lust-bang-omg we're soulmates. (The smut was good though ngl.) They should of had more adventures or bonding moments that weren't in the forge or conversations that didn't revolve around innuendo and flirting. The vulnerable moments that exist were good, and this book needed more for this for their relationship to completely work for me. I also have mixed feelings about mates just as a concept. It's becoming overused and they feel too convenient. It neatens up the beautiful complexity that relationships have but people are complex and messy. The author does emphasize choice a lot in this and that was appreciated, but at the end of the day, they're fated mates so how much of a choice is it really. The idea that someone chooses you over and over is just so romantic, and we need to return to our roots.

ALSO, ON THE TOPIC OF INTERESTING!!!!! Let my humans stay humans. The dynamic of that is just so juicy, and I don't know why none of these authors want to tackle it. RIP my baby Carrion. I was so excited to have a silly, little human that joined and went along despite the odds but nah. Everyone must be fae daddy, I guess. His reveal almost made up for it though. I'm a human apologist. I love us. Saeris being part vampire saves it a little for me but STILL.

Overall, this was better than I expected and fun. It's got metal magic and vampires and vile villains so I will be sat for the next one.