Lukan Gardova is a cardsharp, academy dropout, and―thanks to a duel that ended badly―the disgraced heir to an ancient noble house. His days consist of cheap wine, rigged card games, and wondering how he might win back the life he threw away.
When Lukan discovers that his estranged father has been murdered in strange circumstances, he finds fresh purpose. Deprived of his chance to make amends for his mistakes, he vows to unravel the mystery behind his father’s death.
His search for answers leads him to Saphrona, fabled city of merchant princes, where anything can be bought if one has the coin. Lukan only seeks the truth, but instead he finds danger and secrets in every shadow.
For in Saphrona, everything has a price―and the price of truth is the deadliest of all.
*****
I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts are my own.
Review:
The Silverblood Promise caught my eye with the many reviewers comparing it to The Lies of Locke Lamora, one of my all-time favorites in the fantasy genre. Having read it, I can call it a strong debut if somewhat color-by-numbers, and unfortunately contains several elements that I personally loathe.
The strengths of The Silverblood Promise clearly lie in the writing voice and the worldbuilding. The narration immediately harkens back to the epic fantasy of the 00s, as we set our story in the city of Saphrona, It’s gritty, dirty underworld with corruption abound, and the perfect place for rogues and warriors to make their fortune. The trade of Phaeron relics, relics from an ancient bygone civilization who created mysterious powers artifacts, fuel the underground. And it’s an obsession with these relics that may have resulted in Lukan’s father’s death at the beginning of the book.
Lukan, a drunkard, Academy dropout, and utter failure of the nobility, finds himself traveling to Saphrona to uncover the secrets behind his father’s death. Throughout the story, he finds himself in a series of situations, untangling a much larger web of intrigue as he chases down his clues. It’s this element of the story I found a color-by-number. At each step of the story, Lukan is handed a clue. He then does something with that clue, which leads him to the next clue, and so on and so on, in an incredibly linear fashion. But it felt like many of these clues were more or less handed to him on a silver platter, that there was no actual work on Lukan’s part and he just regularly happened to overhear the right conversation or a character walked up to him unprompted and just said the thing he was trying to figure out. I like my mystery and my intrigue with a little more layering, and aside from the main villian, it felt like once a character had served their purpose, they became more or less irrelevant to the story.
In addition, The Silverblood Promise includes one of my least favorite tropes, the idiot small child who’s only purpose is to hold the idiot ball and make the main character explain themselves. It seems I’m the odd one out with this opinion, but I found Flea’s very existence so damn infuriating. The sole purpose of her character seemed to be to make Lukan overexplain his jokes, and any big words. The use of this occasionally for banter can be charming, but it just kept on happening and happening. Which may have been find if Lukan was the fun kind of snarky, but instead he’s just an idiot. If you’re going to be sassy at your opponents, you really need the skills to back it up (see Locke Lamora). Instead, Lukan’s an idiot who’s slightly above-average with the blade, and truly has no idea when to shut up.
Overall, I rate this book a 3/5. Despite my criticisms, I think this is a pretty solid debut novel and the teased secrets of the Phaeron artifacts piques my continued interest in the story.
r/Fantasy 2023-24 Bingo Squares:
- First in a series
- Criminals
Publication Date: 7 May 2024
Publisher: Tor Books
Format: eBook, ARC
Pages: 528
Word Count: ~161,000
ISBN: 9781250345806
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