Quicksilver by Callie Hart

Introduction 

The story follows Saeris, a 24-year old girl who lives in the poorest district of a dessert engulfed country where she survives by stealing and working the forge. When she is caught stealing metal from one of the guards, she is taken to the immortal queen to be punished, but in a real ”Sword in the Stone” scene, she pulls out a magical sword, and as she is dying from my wounds, she is taken by a stranger to the Fae realm.

It is a decent setup, but if you read the description of the book, you realise quickly that she will be transported into another world and I immediately worried that all would soon be forgotten – and it was. The only thing that carries over from one world to the other is that Saeris is obsessed with water, as it was a sparse resource in her home country, and suddenly seeing snow and being able to shower seems unreal. Afterwards, all is soon forgotten, along with her original goals; and for what? The oh so handsome asshole named Kingfisher. 

World building 

Saeris’s home world is somewhat interesting but underdeveloped as we leave it for the Fae realm, never to return. The other realm, Yvelia, is the stark contrast being covered ice and snow by the Fae King. What else? Nothing else, because the world building in this book is some of the most half-ass writing I have ever seen. The magic system is never explained, not even breadcrumbs for the reading to put the pieces together, but it is the most convenient bullshit I have seen in ages. It is shortly mentioned the one of the side characters, Renfis can use some spatial magic that the male lead cannot, however, nothing else is ever explained. Nothing. There is no further exploration of the political conflict, the different courts or more in-dept curiosity of the many other races and species living in Yvelia. It is all just…there. Magic exist for convenience without explanation – ah yes, Kingfisher can restore an entire room with a finger snap, can make clothes appear out of thin air, and also controls shadows and so much more. With that level of magic, I find it hard to believe that their society would last long or remain as it is. However, we don't really know what everyday life is like anyway.

Having torn this world to pieces, I am also left with the feeling that it could easily have been better. The sequel isn't out yet, so it is too soon to say if we can further explanations later on, but Hart had the bones for making it interesting. The concept of the quicksilver itself is really fascinating, and it appear to be connected to the gods on a higher level. So, for a society with beings this old (and they are over a thousand years old), I find it strange that isn't researched more. The quicksilver is sacred yet useless to most, but at the same time the Winter Court has a million staircases that all lead to a big pool of it. Sigh, it never makes sense, not the little bit of information that is provided, and nothing can fill in the gap of what a reader needs to understand the world. 

Characters 

I should get it over with straight away: Saeris is an incredible annoying and stupid main character. She is introduced as being a strong-willed fighter who would do anything to protect her brother, but alas, it only takes one bastard of a man to make her as useless as a stone during a swimming competition. She talks about working at the forge, even though we rarely see her using it, but the first time she stands in front of it, she almost touches burning mental without gloves because she is distracted by a man. Her level of stupidity is mind blowing, and she never really figures anything out herself. She is supposed to only have a week to master the quicksilver (or is it Kingfisher who only gets to stay a week, who knows), yet she barely works on it more than five times during a 600 page book. And does she solve the quicksilver mystery herself? No, she does not, it is handed to her on a silver-platter as the most obvious, stupid solution ever – and it is handed to her by the comic relief character which honestly makes it worse for her. She is also unnecessarily horny for Kingfisher, so much so that I was almost relieved when it was revealed that they were Mates, because no normal person would be so delirious around a man within seconds of him showing his teeth a little bit. Lastly, she forgets all about her brother after 25% of the book, as her world starts revolving around Kingfisher instead. What a heroine to admire.

Now, to every woman's great job, Kingfisher appears to be the ideal morally grey man that we all love these days. He has the abs, the tattoos, even the shadows and the dark curly hair. But oh boy, is he a piece of shit. He treats Saeris as gum under his shoes, and even though it should be justified as he wants to eliminate the bond between them, it makes no difference as he also treats all his friends as trash and needs to sign up for an anger management course immediately.  He does not possess the charm that so many similar fictional men have, but because the smut was decent and up to the standard, it would seem to be enough for some women. Either way, I hated everything about him, the way he kept information from her, the way he treated everyone around him, the way he is magically saved from his trouble with the quicksilver off screen. His best friend Renfis was by all means a much better character and would have been a far more interesting love interest.

And that leads us to the side characters. Lorealie is discarded as soon as the crew leaves the Winter Court, never mentioned or spoken off again until she is kidnapped and bitten at the end of the book. Not even her father cares about her, and neither do I. The only other character worth mentioning is Carrion Swift, the human smuggler that Kingfisher accidentally brings to the Fae realm instead of Saeris’s brother. I was worried that he would not be important to the story, but he played a significant role in resolving problems and was a nic comic relief. I still feel torn about the fact that he is revealed to be Fae in the end, as it raises a lot of questions about what else he has been hiding or if he has been pretending to be a fool all along, being over a thousand years old. Anyways, according to the description of the sequel, he will play a larger role in the sequel. 

My thoughts on other people's thoughts

First and foremost, this book is overrated as many popular books on BookTook these days. There is not much new or mind-blowing in it, the love interest ticks all the boxes he is supposed to, so a lot of women seem to ignore the fact that he doesn't have a great personality because his cock is huge and he likes to choke the main character during sex (and the shadows also joins in). People who fall for the tropes of enemies-to-lovers and fated mates, do not seem to realise that it actually does not apply to this book. Saeris and Kingfisher have awful chemistry in the beginning of the book, and when they have sex for the first time it seems as if Saeris simply wants Kingfisher because he is hot. I mean, who doesn't want that, but she starts feeling all horny and fluffy about this man before she even realises that maybe he has some real issues that is stopping him from being the man he used to be. But apparently, that is not a problem to her. Honestly, anyone praising this book in any aspect needs to go back to school and learn how to read again. I read so many reviews about how great Kingfisher is and how amazing the ending was. Sure, the ending was something, because the rest of the book is nothing. I could not tell you why we need 600 pages of this, when everything is solved within 100 pages. I don't think I will write a long section about this, as the tropes are misleading and never really applies. The book is not heartfelt or engaging, as I had to struggle through chapter after chapter of pointlessness. If there is one thing worth highlighting, it would be the quicksilver as a concept, but yet it feels convoluted next to everything else that lacks depth. An action-packed, high-stake drama at the end of the book does not make up for everything else. 

Overall rating ⭐⭐⭐★★★★★★★

When I first finished this book, I sat with an unsatisfied feeling in my stomach and an ending that seemed a lot like a Blood and Ash rip-off. Nothing in this book is really planned out, nothing is properly set up, and the plot twist at the end where it turns out that ALL villains work together was the dumbest, I have read this year. We barely have a relationship with any of them, much less Belkion who never really seems to care that Saeris and Kingfisher escapes the Winter Court to begin with. It is so easy for Hart to make him a heartless villain who is willing to murder his own daughter because he didn't get a boy and because he didn't get a wife that would tell the prophecies that he wanted to hear. Everything had to be tied together suddenly, and it seemed this was the only solution Hart could come up with: let us make them all evil, oh, and the want world domination. Surely that makes perfect sense, who needs villains with depth and reason? For a race that lives so long, it is undeniably dumb that no one else has realised this collaboration so to speak, and it is also never fully explained why the portals were closes between the realms to begin with. It was overall an unsatisfying book to read, and I am pleased that I did not waste my money on buying it. Quicksilver receives the high number of three stars, as it still deserves points for trying to please us with a shadow daddy, due to Carrion being the life of the party, and for trying to do something with quicksilver – but note the words trying, as Hart fails at literally everything except for writing the intense sex scenes. To be honest, it felt like the sex scenes were written first and then everything was created around it. The language, the pacing, the style was so different to the rest of the book. So, if that is all you can write, maybe stick to fanfiction instead and go back to school to learn more about world building and how to write non degrading dialogue. We all deserve better than this.