Quicksilver by Callie Hart – Review

Published: September 10, 2024

Publisher: Forever

Series: Fae & Alchemy #1

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Pages: 624 (Kindle)

My Rating: 5 Stars

Synopsis:
Do not touch the sword. Do not turn the key. Do not open the gate.

Twenty-four-year-old Saeris Fane is good at keeping secrets. No one knows about the strange powers she possesses, or the fact that she has been picking pockets and stealing from the Undying Queen’s reservoirs for as long as she can remember. In the land of the unforgiving desert, there isn’t much a girl wouldn’t do for a glass of water. But a secret is like a knot. Sooner or later, it is bound to come undone.

When Saeris comes face-to-face with Death himself, she inadvertently reopens a gateway between realms and is transported to a land of ice and snow. The Fae have always been the stuff of myth, of legend, of nightmares…but it turns out they’re real, and Saeris has landed right in the middle of a centuries-long conflict that might just get her killed.

The first of her kind to tread the frozen mountains of Yvelia in over a thousand years, Saeris mistakenly binds herself to Kingfisher, a handsome Fae warrior, who has secrets and nefarious agendas of his own. He will use her Alchemist’s magic to protect his people, no matter what it costs him… or her. Death has a name. It is Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate. His past is murky. His attitude stinks. And he’s the only way Saeris is going to make it home.

Be careful of the deals you make, dear child. The devil is in the details…

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I probably would have skipped reading Quicksilver if not for the recent news that Netflix just won the rights for the movie deal AND a friend of mine was also reading it. Not to be left in the dark about something that was apparently generating tons of hype, I picked it up with the expectation that it would be entertaining but perhaps not all that good because well, many romantasy books aren’t that good. Readers, how wrong I was. I devoured this 600+ page book in two days. I was carrying my kindle around so I could read while drying my hair, doing dishes, etc. I could not put it down.

Quicksilver follows Saeris Fane, a poor girl living in the desert city of Zilvaren where people will literally kill for a drop to drink and metal of any kind is worth its weight in gold. We’re first introduced to Saeris as she’s stealing a metal covered gauntlet from a guard that she hopes to melt down and pawn off for necessities like food and water. During this intro period we’re introduced to her foolish younger brother, her father figure Elroy, and former lover and smuggler, Carrion Swift. Saeris’s crime doesn’t go unpunished for long and the guards show up and she’s dragged off to the palace to await her sentencing and if she’s particularly unlucky, meet the queen. What she doesn’t expect is that, during her panicked fight to not have her throat slit, she awakens a strange silvery pool of metal and when she grabs a sword that had been thrust into it, a man she can only think of as Death grabs both her and the sword and pulls her through the quicksilver into another world. 

Saeris awakens in a lavish room to find her mortal wounds healed and much to her dismay, attended to by a fae woman. All the people here are fae or sprites and they’ve been looking for someone with Saeris’s ability to manipulate the quicksilver to create wards and weapons and possibly even reopen the quicksilver gates between worlds. She’s now a prized possession with one goal – master this ability she didn’t know she had – and she’s being forced to work with Kingfisher, the man who rescued her. 

What I’ve summarized above is the briefest and most basic of synopses of the first like, 15% of the book and doesn’t begin to cover when it gets really interesting! As you might predict, Kingfisher (Fisher), is the love interest though he and Saeris certainly get off to a rocky start and it’s definitely a hostile yet tense relationship for much of the book. I wouldn’t say it’s enemies to lovers exactly, but Fisher is harsh and intimidating towards almost everyone, but especially Saeris. Saeris herself is handling being nearly killed and thrust into a new world full of fae that she thought were just stories surprisingly well. She’s not an asshole to the important people, she’s willing to cooperate, and she’s definitely planning her escape at the first possible moment. Honestly, for these reasons alone I like her better than so many of the hot headed, swaggering female protagonists in romantasy. She’s just very likable and she is sassy, just not all the time, she’s brave, and even though she’s in a different world she decides to help for more reasons than just escaping back to her own life.

I admit, I also really loved Fisher. That dude is crazy, like, literally. He used to travel the quicksilver before all the portals were shut by the sword in Zilvaren and was once forced to do so without a ward and as a result, he holds a trace amount of the living metal within him and it speaks to him. As I found out more about him, I actually liked him more! He’s a warrior and it soon becomes clear that his battle prowess and that of his dearest friend Renfis are legendary among the people. They are the only thing holding back the blood-cursed fae (basically vampires) from the rest of the realm. 

This is by no means a perfect book and I would have loved some more developed side characters, especially female side characters that had meaningful relationships with Saeris. Yes, there’s Fisher’s half-sister Everlayne, but she’s not present for much of the book. I would have also loved some more descriptions of the world so I could get some better mental images. To its credit, I think the world building is off to a good start and can’t wait to see how that progresses in the next installment. Additionally, while I enjoy a bit of spice in my books, the level here may be a turn off to some readers. While not super plentiful or even as explicit as I’ve seen elsewhere, there are 4-5 pretty descriptive scenes, so your mileage may vary with this book depending on your preferences!

Quicksilver is an addictive read and lacks many of the tropes that I hate the most, though I won’t disclose what those are because it would be spoilery. The ending completely blew me away and it didn’t end on a cliffhanger, which was a relief since the next installment isn’t scheduled to release until Fall 2025. This will be a surprise last minute addition to my Best Books of 2024!