Silver Elite by Dani Francis – Book Review

Book Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Series: Silver Elite (Book 1)

Genre: Adult Dystopian Romance

Spice: Extra Hot

Summary:

Wren Darlington has been hiding her entire life. She’s one of the Modified, or “Mods”, a group of persecuted people born with psychic powers after a world-altering event a hundred years ago. The Company, led by the dictatorial General, considers the Mods “defects”, and kills or enslaves them whenever they are found. And Wren happens to be an unusually strong Mod, so her and her Mod guardian, Uncle Jim, have been hiding: first in a dangerous, isolated forest when Wren was young, and now in plain sight as ranchers in Ward Z.

When Wren makes an impulsive choice to save a child’s life, a series of tragic events lands her in a tryout for the Company’s elite military group, Silver Squad. Suddenly she’s thrown in with a group of defect-hating Company loyalists far from her ranch in Z and must pretend like she’s one of them to survive. Hiding who she is just got more important, and infinitely more difficult.

She tries to fail out of the program, but the extremely attractive, sharp, and irritating squad captain, Cross, refuses to kick her out no matter how many rules she breaks or tests she fails. When the Uprising offers her a role in their rebellion if she can turn her training results around and make it into Silver Elite, Wren sees it as her only option to fight back. Between the sexual tension in Cross’s office, the dangerous training exercises, and some murderous training fellows, Wren will have to find a way to survive and make it into Silver Elite so she can fight back against the General’s tyrannical rule.

Reaction:

Silver Elite is such an addictive read; I could not put it down. The FMC Wren is an entertaining narrator, the tension – both sexual and situational – are always on point, and there were some twists that I totally didn’t see coming. For just how glued to my book I was while reading it, it would get a 5-star rating. That being said, I do agree with some of the criticism this book has received regarding a lack of world-building compared to the best dystopian novels, and some of the choices made regarding the characters and plot.

Starting with Wren, I loved her dry, sarcastic sense of humor and banter. It lent levity to the narrative and was purely entertaining. While I don’t usually laugh out loud while reading, it did illicit some wry snorts. The second thing I liked about her character was her compassion. She consistently displayed a willingness to put herself on the line for those she cares about and was able to see humanity in those loyalists around her, even when they couldn’t see humanity in Mods.

But I do think Wren’s character is one of the main problems with this novel. With the heavy spice and romance, this book was obviously marketed for adults, and Wren is supposed to be 20 years old, but her character displays a lot of tendencies that you usually see in FMCs in young adult novels. She makes questionable decisions with little regard for the outcome and then gets herself out of them by lying. Wren thinks she has strong convictions in her beliefs and morals but struggled to apply those morals to real world situations and sometimes sacrificed them when pressured by others. I also felt like she was self-centered, experienced anxiety over physical appearance, and trusted others way too easily, displaying a naiveté. While one or two of those could be a character trait, all of them combined lead me to believe this book was written from a Young Adult point of view, but with an adult level of spice, creating a disconnect in my reading experience.

I really did enjoy the romantic tension in the novel though. It’s sexy in the burning, yearning, I want what I can’t have kind of way, and Cross is dark, mysterious, and matches Wren word for word during their banter. The spice is sometimes a bit of a shock because it goes from zero to a hundred really fast, but after I adjusted my expectations, I was into it. I thought the progression of Wren and Cross’s relationship was slow enough to satisfy my slow-burn itch, but there were times it seemed shallow or like they were more interested in the idea of the other instead of the reality. I’m hoping their relationship can further develop in the future books to have more depth and sincerity.

Initially, I thought the world building was acceptable – the Continent seemed sufficiently nuanced with plenty of cynicism about humanity and their society to identify the novel as dystopian. I thought the divisions between the Mods and the non-psychic humans were intriguing, providing a commentary on the current political and economic divisions present in society. But I think the plot got in the way of further world-building, especially from a setting perspective. As the main narrator is confined for a large portion of the novel to a military base, we don’t get to see a lot of the Continent or how this society really functions for the everyday person beyond brief glimpses when Wren is off the base, creating a lack of further world development in the middle section of the novel.

Even with it’s pitfalls, I would recommend this book for the edge-of-your-seat tension, exciting action, and of course that sizzling romance. If you are looking for all that set against a dystopian backdrop with a psychic FMC, this book will not disappoint. I am eagerly awaiting the next book in the series which I hope will be just as addictive with even more development of the characters and settings.