Whispers of Stone and Silver

ARC REVIEW through PenPinery
DNF'd at 31%.

I couldn't get into this book. I liked that the beginning of the book started with a letter as a way of explaining what had happened in the previous book. However, I didn't read the previous book, that's on me although as far as I'm aware it wasn't a requirement, and so the letter explained absolutely nothing to me. I had no idea what was going on based on that letter.

The dialogue feels, as far as I've read it, clunky and unnatural. The non-dialogue parts of the book are often much better although it does rely on a lot of info dumping (i.e. name dropping) and I found it hard to keep track of who is of and who is on which side etc. etc.

The swearing in the dialogue also takes me out of the story. As far as I'm aware, this is not a contemporary story, so why are we swearing like it is?

I really wanted to like this because the premise and the setting is right up my street, and also, it is an ARC - so I wanted to give it a real good try. But unfortunately, it wasn't for me. At 31% it was strongly heading into the insta-love/lust trope (because the MC's haven't actually spend that much time on paper together yet, so for the time they are together it IS insta) and I'm a slow burn girlie through and through.