Title: Silverstrupen (~Silver Throat)
Author: Siri Pettersen
Translator (Swedish): Ylva Kempe
Series: Vardari #2
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 425
Published: 2023 (translated 2024), B. Wahlströms
My Grade: 5 out of 5

GOODREADS’ DESCRIPTION

Imagine having stolen the devil from those in power. Robbed them of their source of everlasting life. And started a war, so fuelled by fear and disdain, that you are forced to become what you are hunting.

Juva is scarred for life by the man she liberated. The devil himself, whose blood sustained the eternal lives of the vardari. Now, she is battling unintended consequences: a flood of wolf-sick, a wavering city council and vardari´s desperate feud for the last drops.

Consumed by grief and fury, she is forced to side with dark, fanatical forces. Juva is fighting for everything she holds dear, but soon finds herself on a knife’s edge when she realises that the scar from Gríf cuts far deeper than she had imagined…

• Náklav’s foundation is cracking under a flood of wolf-sick.

• Divine images miraculously reveal the true faces of evil.

• The elite who ran the world are crawling out from the shadows.

• A vardari awaiting death finds a reason to live.

• A fanatical priest opens the doors Drukna

MY REVIEW

Haha, wow, no wonder I couldn’t remember too much about The Iron Wolf before starting this second instalment in Siri Pettersen’s second trilogy, Vardari. It was released 2021 in Swedish which, with my bad reading memory, equals like two decades. It was delayed for almost two years also.

Whenever I grade a book, I always do it with my gut. Sometimes I honestly think that I am not very good at reviewing books because of this. But at the same time, I also believe that the general feeling after reading a book tells you more than if you look at very specific things that might speak differently to different readers. For instance, I love Siri’s world building. For me to love a setting like this, it doesn’t have to be original (even though this definitely is with its Norse roots), it’s all about how it is presented. Sometimes, I get a bit annoyed when the author is trying too much to describe the world by putting new words and things in the story without even a small description of what it means. Some might like that, but I don’t overly much. Siri builds her worlds very detailed but doesn’t do it in an overcomplicated way. It just makes sense, even if it was a bit hard getting into the story again after such a long time waiting (and reading other types of fantasy in between).

The story progresses nicely, it’s hard to put the book down (like with the first one). Things are constantly happening and you always want to continue to find out where this is going. And the ending. I feel that I am repeating myself a little bit after my review of The Iron Wolf, but the ending here was so similar. Not story-wise, but feeling-wise. It was an ending. A really good ending. And on the second to last page, I wasn’t sure what the third book could possibly be about. But then came the last page. Yep, there will definitely be a third book and I am so excited for it to, first of all, be revealed, and secondly be released. Hopefully in 2025 according to her website. But I also totally respect the writing process. Writing is hard and takes time. But please, Siri, hurry up with the final piece in this trilogy 😊.

I think Siri Pettersen could write anything and I would read it as soon as it is released. She is definitely one of my favorite authors! Do I even need to print the grade out in words?

Yeah, FIVE out of five possible!