Silvercloak LK Steven

YA author Laura Steven moves into the adult market with the start of her new series written as LK Steven – Silvercloak. But despite the change of penname, and plenty of sex and violence, Steven is unable to quite leave her YA roots behind.

Silvercloak opens with the murder of Saffron’s parents by goons from the Bloodmoon organised crime family. Twenty years later, Saffron, in her drive for revenge and justice for her parents, is on the verge of graduating as a Silvercloak, one of the magical police of her world. Only the head of the Silvercloaks has other ideas. It turns out that Saffron is immune to magic and this makes her perfect to be sent undercover with the Bloodmoons as they use magic to keep their members in line. As she is immune, Saffron will be able to report back on Bloodmoon activities without suffering any ill effects from a magic brand that would normally prevent her from betraying the Bloodmoons. But while she does this, Saffron finds herself falling for Levan, the son of the head of the Bloodmoons. This growing connection is complicated by the fact that Saffron she has already had a vision of both kissing and killing him.

The magic system in Silvercloak is interesting. Power is drawn from pleasure and can be amplified by pain. But the different categories of mages is very unclear, or why it is rare to be able to have more than one specialty. And then there are the wands, with powers pretty much lifted straight from JK Rowling (the wand chooses the user etc), down to a flashback to Saffron’s first trip to the wand shop.

Boiled down to its essence this is straight YA fare. Young woman on a mission of revenge but in doing so learns some secrets about herself. This is also an enemies-to-lovers story where, despite the fact that Saffron’s life’s mission to bring down the Bloodmoons, she seemingly cannot help but fall for her sworn enemy. And then, of course, it turns out Saffron is some sort of chosen one who can do a rare type of magic that no one else can do that while foreshadowed acts as a bit of a dues ex machina. This is definitely not a novel for kids- there is plenty of violence and sex – but those who grew up with very similar but slightly tamer YA novels will feel right out home with the narrative beats of this one and will likely be brought back to the next volume of this series by the cliffhanger ending.

Silvercloak by LK Steven

6

6.0/10