The Dragon Queen’s reign is one of darkness and death. Humans have vanished under the rubble of their world and if the queen has her way, elves will be next. Eroan, one of the last elven assassins, lives for one purpose: kill the queen.
He would have succeeded if not for her last line of defense: Prince Lysander. Now, captured and forced into the queen’s harem, Eroan sees another opportunity. Why kill just the queen when he can kill them all? It would be simple, if not for the troubled and alluring prince. A warrior, a killer, and something else…, something Eroan finds himself inexplicably drawn to. Trapped in a life he despises, Lysander knows his time is running out.
If the queen doesn’t kill him for his failures, her enemies will. There’s nothing left to live for, until an elf assassin almost kills him. A stubborn, prideful, fool of an elf who doesn’t know when to quit. An elf who sparks a violent, forbidden desire in Lysander. If Lysander can’t save himself, maybe he can save the elf and maybe, just maybe… one stubborn elf will be enough to bring down the queen before she kills them all.
Warnings: Violence, Dubcon, Noncon, Incest
Category: M/M, F/M
Silk & Steel is the first in the Silk & Steel series of dark M/M fantasy novels. There are four books in this series, and while the cover may shout “adult fantasy series” its really more of an… “Adults ONLY fantasy series” if you catch my drift. A darkfic smut epic, this will be up your ally if you’re into tragic gay romance with a dark fantasy backdrop.
WRITING
The prose in this book is quite good, and it comes right out the gate putting you in the atmosphere and tone with our main protagonist Eroan captive and in chains. It’s a dark fantasy that sucks you in to its rather dismal world and follows a heart wrenching tale of political upheaval from multiple sides of a devastating war. It does a very good job at drawing the reader in, establishing high stakes, and keeping the audience mired in its foreboding ambience. This is a book for grimdark readers through and through and will not disappoint if your taste is for stories that feel unrelenting and bleak, while still managing to convey enough hope that you continue to root for the lead characters. It does get a little soap opera-y for my own taste though as it is a kind of continual slog of bad things happening to the characters, but if that’s your jam this is a great fit.
EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT
Unfortunately I did find both leads a little hard to really sink my teeth into. I have high sneaking suspicions that this book is a repurposed fanfic but of what I could not say. I don’t have a problem with the practise of name changing a fanfic to sell as original, but it can often lead to characters that you feel you’re supposed to know a bit more about than you do, if the author hasn’t reworked the original manuscript quite enough to fully invest you in them. I kept feeling like I was missing a piece of the story, as though I had been dropped in mid-narrative, so while the plights of the lead characters were engaging and I found they had a lot of one on one chemistry, I didn’t feel like I quite knew who they were.
WORLDBUILDING
I really loved the worldbuilding in this book. Elves are at war with dragons, who have more or less taken over the world and have their own culture of extreme political upheaval and headgames. It felt very dark high fantasy and I loved learning about the dragons and their culture, which is of course extremely fucked up to suit the grimdark world. Lysander as a character giving pushback against his toxic family and cultural traditions is fascinating because it means we get to see both the world and cultures as they are as well as people within the world who function as counter-culture. There’s history to this world, there’s different peoples and viewpoints and regimes and factions, all of it explored very well to make it feel organic and vibrant.
STEAMINESS
Really steamy sex content in this! This runs the whole nine yards from a dubcon to con forbidden lovers relationship between Lysander and Eroan to some much much harder fare with Lysander and the other dragons. Be warned this book does feature a gay man who is forced to have sex with women as that is bound to be upsetting for many readers. Lysanders mother’s strange almost incest is a wild ride, the book even opens with her fucking someone in front of him while she lectures him for not breeding. The sex between Lysander and Eroan ends up being beautifully loving amidst the backdrop of all the brutal noncon that fills the rest of the world and the dragon’s culture which just makes for a stunning reading experience that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
All together a very nice dark fantasy M/M to sink your teeth into. I thought it was very well written, and I enjoyed the way the author was not afraid to let the story go to some really dark places.
Have you read Silk & Steel? Let me know what YOU thought by leaving me a comment!
Roses And Thorns 