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Oh readers, I know we’ve talked about how Ashley and I tend to prefer e-books to dead tree (physical) books AND I know we have talked about how I need deadlines, like some things in my life DO. NOT. HAPPEN. without deadlines.  My boss is aware, Ashley is aware, and Adam knows too.  My struggle is very real.  So, when I received an Advanced Review Copy of The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi from a Goodreads Giveaway courtesy of Wednesday Books, I was so very excited. And then it sat.  It sat on my TBR stack from November 2019 until August 2020.  That’s nine months, NINE MONTHS that I glanced longingly at this gorgeous cover (which is different than the final cover, which I adore even more), that held the constitution of one of my favorite titles of 2019.  And let’s be real, I am SUPER picky about the print copies of giveaways I request because I have three in my possession and I have now read one.  To be fair, I have two Kindle giveaways on my tablet and I have read zero (I did get one of them this month, so I want some credit for that) because they have no deadlines.  

Now that I’ve finally read it, and it’s finally being published on September 22, I am thrilled to tell you about The Silvered Serpents and I’m going to do it out of my normal order because I’m writing this out of my normal order, and early, because I’m passing off the print copy of this book to Ashley tomorrow (as of the initial drafting), and I think we’ve already discussed that I have to write quickly or Ashley has a lot more editing to do.  I’m also going to try to minimize spoilers for both The Silvered Serpents and the previous book in the trilogy, The Gilded Wolves, but there’s only so much I can do.  Last things first, I will 100% be rereading this five star book, and I am very likely to purchase it on Kindle.  I don’t love it as much as The Gilded Wolves, but I still love it enough for five stars.  I think my diminished love is because it’s the second book in a dramatic trilogy and it’s not set in Paris.  Most of the things I loved about The Gilded Wolves I also love about The Silvered Serpents, including the ensemble cast, the deep characters, and the way this diverse group demonstrates found family.  The writing is also solid with gorgeous descriptions and dialogues full of sass, feeling, or sometimes both.  It was ALL I could do not to send some of these quotes to Ashley as I was reading (my three favorites had sticky tabs on the pages because I do so adore them).  I was trying so hard to be respectful of her enneagram 1 and let her experience the book as intended, without any spoilers.  

If you’ve read The Gilded Wolves, (spoiler alert) then you know we leave our cast shortly after a tragedy strikes.  The Silvered Serpents picks up right where we left them, still trying to process and figure out how to move forward as individuals and as a group.  You also know that The Silvered Serpents has our group traveling to Russia for the Winter Conclave of the Order of Babel and some adventure, so we lose our beloved Paris as our setting in this book.  Perhaps this was part of the reason I didn’t feel the sense of place as deeply as compared to the last book, because the setting is so different, both on the page and in my lived experience.  With the grief that our ensemble is feeling, we also see how love works in the group, how it works when other characters are introduced into the mix, (because we are in a different country with different houses of the Order of Babel in control), and we learn a bit more about some of the back stories of our group.  Oh yes, and there’s adventure and mystery as well.  Enrique enlightens me (but probably refreshes Ashley) on some Greco-Roman iconography along the way, and we get to visit another mansion of one of the great Houses of the Order, and it has more iconography with amazing imagery (both of the descriptive and thematic kinds).  

I do want to mention one more reason this book sat for so long on my TBR stack, because I was scared of it. I’m scared of the middle book in a dramatic trilogy, as I mentioned when we discussed The Gilded Wolves.  I can’t say I’m pleased at the ending of this book, but I can say that I’m not sad or disappointed, and I didn’t want to throw it.  There is a bit of a cliffhanger, but, as one expects from this group, there’s a semblance of a plan, which has been enough for them in the past, and afterall, isn’t the formula that our group will conquer their foe in the third installment.  Here’s hoping they will, because I do love a happy ending, and that it will come out earlier in 2021, rather than later.  

~Nikki

I finished The Silvered Serpents with a semblance of respect for my responsibilities the next day. I found it difficult to read the Advanced Reader Copy of the book, it was missing all of the required symbols that would make the logic of treasure hunting easier for me to decipher before the characters did. I had done so with some of the drawings of symbols in The Gilded Wolves, but I’m not going to show you what they are for fear of spoiling anything for you. The funniest part about this read was that it took me almost 7 instances of seeing “IMAGE TO COME” and trying to figure out what that meant in the context of the story. Y’all it’s embarrassing and I had to interrupt Nikki’s conference call with a google hangout warning to not read my text message I sent to her phone with the attached picture. (I was still in scenic Sumner County at the time and the interwebz was super slow.) I was afraid that she would lolz fo’realz and disturb the other participants. She read it anyway because she was on mute, but ‘I’ didn’t know that and was trying to be considerate. She adores me, y’all, and there is text-tual proof!

Because this is a dead-tree ARC of a book that is being released on September 22nd, Nikki read it first and I went to her house to pick it up. There are several penciled highlights and post-it notes that I was informed about and subsequently required to text her about when I reached those moments. It became apparent, unsurprisingly, that we have highlighted many of the same quotations and examples of sass throughout the entire book. This is why it’s great to have a book buddy with the same taste, you love the same things. However, before I left her house with the book in my greedy little paws, I started flipping through the book and hardcore belly laughed in front of her Adam as regards the dedication page:

And so ensued a solid 10 minute discussion about Nicolas Cage movies. It. Was. Glorious. I love the National Treasure franchise because I am a giant history/art history scholar nerd and the fact that the first movie my Adam ever took me to see in theatres was National Treasure 2. Yeah, the first movie date my not-yet-husband took me on was to a Nicolas Cage film at a theatre in Canada with a plot about American history and mythology. The irony is not lost on me, y’all.

None of my words above have anything to say about the book’s plot or characters but OH SO MUCH to point out how many interesting things readers can miss out on if we avoid pages that aren’t integral to the story telling. The acknowledgements in this ARC also states: 

“To Mom and Dad, thanks for bragging about me on Facebook and randomly telling strangers about your daughter who sits around in pajamas for a living.”

My mother would probably be embarrassed to know I, too, admit that I work in my pajamas, but not remotely surprised that it actually occurs. 

Nikki’s covered all the things we both love about the plot, setting, and characters, but I do want to talk about the ending of this second book in a dramatic trilogy. The ‘cliffhanger’ bit is part of what I love about an ensemble cast. In this instance we as readers know exactly what and why something has happened, but some of the other characters are in the dark and then that character DOES SOMETHING DUMB that could explain the whole scenario to them and we just want to smack them upside the head because they weren’t thinking with their head but with their emotions. And now we have to wait MONTHS and MONTHS for them to find out the details and for us to be able to finish the story, something we really don’t like having to wait for, but that’s where we are. I’ll be re-reading this five star book before the third installment, and who knows, I’ll probably just re-read The Gilded Wolves as well to cover all my bases

Do you prefer books that end with cliffhangers where neither the characters NOR the readers know what is going on? ::cough:: Empire of Storms ::cough:: or books where at least the readers have an inkling of the plan but some of the characters do not? Obviously you know which side of that coin we prefer! And if you’d like to join us in discussing a book that is the first in a series, conveniently, that’s coming up on Friday, September 18 at 7:30 p.m. CST when we discuss the book Nikki confused with The Gilded Wolves for a ridiculous amount of time, Shelby Mahurin’s debut Serpent & Dove (and the follow up to this came out Tuesday 1 Sept).  Please at her, because I know I will, even though they’re both magic + Francophone + YA.  Also please register here so we can send you the link to Virtual Book club!  

~Ashley