Silver & Blood by Jessie Mihalik

TL;DR: A promising start but this went on a little long and got a bit dull.
Source: NetGalley, thank you so much to the publisher!

Plot: Riela gets forced into the woods to find and defeat a beast and finds a different beast than anticipated.
Characters: I liked them for the most part! They were flawed and interesting though our MMC couldn’t decide if he was mean or nice.
Setting: I loved the sentient castle but I wish we’d stuck there and shortened the story instead of going further afield with it.
Fantasy: Standard fae, chosen one, secret magic. It wasn’t super unique.

Summary:

When a vicious beast begins attacking her fellow villagers, Riela reluctantly agrees to enter the forbidden forest and kill the monster as she’s the only mage available—or so she thought.

Untrained and barely armed, Riela is quickly overwhelmed when one beast turns into two. She fears her death is at hand until the unexpected arrival of a scarred, strikingly handsome man with gleaming moonlit magic changes her fate—and provides a rare opportunity to learn more about her own fickle power.

After being rescued and healed from the beast’s poison, Riela awakens in a magical castle complete with a gorgeous library, a strange wolf, and the surly man who saved her life. She soon learns Garrick is both more powerful and far deadlier than a mere mortal mage—but thanks to a century-long curse, his powers are weakening.

Trapped in his castle and surrounded by the treacherous woods, the spark of attraction between Riela and Garrick slowly ignites into fiery desire. But the more they discover about Riela’s magic, the more suspicious Garrick grows of her identity. As they unravel the secrets and lies connecting Riela’s past to Garrick’s, the tenuous threads of trust between them start to fray.

Because Riela’s life—or her death—might be the key to regaining everything Garrick has lost.

Thoughts:

Sometimes when you read something and you put it down you remember ever detail, everything you loved or hated. Sometimes it sticks with you like a splinter or a beloved memory. This is not that book. Unfortunately I forgot a great deal of this within 24 hours of finishing it, and I don’t think that’s a good thing.

Riela, our MC, is forced by her village (of people who inexpicably dislike her for very little reason) into the woods to stop a beast that they believe attacked one of their own. She stumbled upon a grumpy man who saves her and brings her to his sentient castle where she finds herself caught in a stand off between fairy kings. I was on board with this book for a good chunk! The sentient castle was fun, and had an attitude without any dialogue which I thought was clever. There was an animal companion, and on the whole the story felt very Beauty and the Beast coded.

Unfortunately things begin to change after a certain point and we transition into what felt like your standard ‘fairy realm, chosen heroine, secret bloodline’ storyline. I found myself simply not caring and when it dragged on for a VERY long time I began to doze off at points.

So for me this wasn’t a huge hit. I can see some strengths and I can see how this is going to work really well for a lot of folks. Unfortunately that’s not me. I wasn’t a big fan and I can’t say I’ll remember much more of it in the coming weeks or months. Meh.