Genre: Paranormal, Action-Adventure, Romance, Sapphic
LGBTQ+ Category: Bi, Lesbian
Reviewer: S.C., Paranormal Romance Guild
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About The Book
When the hunter…
…becomes the haunted.
Second-rate ghosthunter Anya Iteri is the black sheep of a family of metalweavers—powerful mages who can forge iron, shape steel, and even bend blood. Down on her luck and struggling to pay rent, she bribes her little brother, a city guide, to let her drum up business on one of his tours.
The plan is simple. Summon a hibernating ghost to give the tour a show, return it to its slumber, and collect a hefty tip. But the moment the tour begins, Anya encounters a ghost of a different kind: Eleira Soti, talented hunter and former love of her life, newly returned to the city after years away. El’s familiar face leaves Anya fighting distraction and attraction alike on the city’s most haunted grounds.
The night goes from bad to worse when a malignant spirit emerges from the veil, bent on destroying the tour and everyone on it. Racing against time, Anya must team up with El to trap the ghost, save her brother, and prove, once and for all, that her abilities aren’t as second-rate as others think.
The Review
Silverweaver is perfection in small bites, combining amazing and deft worldbuilding, subtly woven relationships, and a compelling plot of mystery, horror, and romance.
Anya is a ghost hunter, much to the chagrin of her talented metal weaver mother and her medical student brother. She’s not bad at her job, but she isn’t reaching the high expectations the finest families in Ilia set for their children, especially those who have brains and talent. Despite the disparity in career paths, Anya and her brother Taran are close and rely on each other. So when Taran asks Anya to share a ghost hunting tour so he can they can both make some money to handle their bills, Spiritweaver (ghost hunter) Anya says yes.
And that’s where things begin to go wrong. For one thing, Eleira (El) Soti shows up as the tour guide—and that is none other than Anya’s former lover. Another ghost hunter is also on the tour, and Taran has some pretty harsh reminders for Anya before the tour even starts, reminding her that at almost 30, there’s nothing she’s ever stuck with and he’s not sure he would trust her to go ghost hunting—in case she leaves when things get tough. With all the emotions swirling, maybe Anya isn’t in the best frame of mind for hunting… but it’s time to prove ghost hunting is the one thing she has stuck with, though her family doesn’t really count it as a success.
At this point, we also get a little lesson in the mythology of the world Taylor creates in Ilia. In Ilia, there is a large chunk of abandoned city. In these parts of the city, all the old iron in the sacred metals and fixtures acts as a barrier to ghosts, most of whom are fairly peaceful and are just hanging out in old cathedrals and the like. But to hunt a ghost, you have to use silver. Ghost tours of the old city are not uncommon, but as El, Anya, and the guests set foot inside one particular building, Anya can tell right away that something is off. However, when her former lover comes up to express her sorrows that Anya hasn’t prospered more in her absence, Anya is distracted by pride and bitterness. She loved El and wanted the sweet, sunshine-y girl to stay with her. They had been destined for great things as both lovers and weavers…until El took a job in a bigger city and left both futures behind.
Inside the old church, a dark, vicious spirit is lurking. It was not summoned by Anya, and it immediately wreaks havoc. But Taran blames Anya for it, claiming she must have bungled the job. Calix, the other spiritweaver who Taran brought along as insurance against his sister’s failure (the nerve!) throws his superiority around and hatches a plan to stop the spirit, but it may put the tour guests in harm’s way. While Anya protests, El reluctantly agrees and has a plan to shield them.
The plan fails and soon reveals that the malignant spirit is a very ancient one. It manages to trap the entire group in a small inner room of the church. Why not just kill it? El reminds Anya that the spirit is that of another, father, or child and salting the spirit will completely destroy it, not just send it back to sleep on the other side of the veil. But as it becomes apparent that this spirit is immune to silver and ready to attack and harm them all, will salt even work? El thinks that she can perhaps talk to it.
As El triesevery dialect she can think of, Calix and Anya have her back. When Anya notices Calix seems particularly cocky (yes, even more so than earlier) she ends up in a scuffle with him. There she finally discovers a summoning stone hidden in his pocket, and it is revealed that the spirit is no ghost—it’s a demon. A demon who cannot wait to possess a human and remain on earth.
The rest of the story has three big goals—stop the demon, help Taran understand that Anya was right all along and Calix (now dead after being briefly possessed by the demon) was a con man who used shady methods to get them into this mess, and get El and Anya back together.
Taylor delivers beautifully as she writes a heroic divide and conquer scene that gets the tour group out, but leaves El alone with the demon. Anya, having just learned that El has returned from the big city for good to be with her both professionally and romantically, cannot leave her to face the demon. And, in a rebellious move, Taran abandons his sensible stance and declares he must also go with his sister and save El. He believes in Anya—and even if he doubts her abilities in some things, he now understands that in her craft, she is one of the best there is.
In a thrilling battle with a resurrected and possessed Calix, Taran and Anya slay the demon, save El, and the city learns that Anya is truly gifted, not just some metalweaver trying to hunt ghosts. The book is 100% satisfying, sweet, enthralling, and I can’t wait to read more!
The Reviewer
S.C. Principale is a voracious writer, reader, baker, and teacher. When she’s not writing paranormal romance and erotica, she loves reading the works of others. She’s a firm believer that great writers must be great readers, too. Reviewing allows her to follow her passion of uplifting and learning from other authors. She lives in Pennsylvania with her amazing husband, their two brilliant and stubborn kids, and their menagerie of six pets.
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