Quicksilver
Callie Hart
Fae & Alchemy
Cover and Synopsis
Quicksilver Cover & Blurb
Do not touch the sword. Do not turn the key. Do not open the gate.
Twenty-four-year-old Saeris Fane is good at keeping secrets. No one knows about the strange powers she possesses, or the fact that she has been picking pockets and stealing from the Undying Queen’s reservoirs for as long as she can remember. In the land of the unforgiving desert, there isn’t much a girl wouldn’t do for a glass of water. But a secret is like a knot. Sooner or later, it is bound to come undone.
When Saeris comes face-to-face with Death himself, she inadvertently reopens a gateway between realms and is transported to a land of ice and snow. The Fae have always been the stuff of myth, of legend, of nightmares…but it turns out they’re real, and Saeris has landed right in the middle of a centuries-long conflict that might just get her killed.
The first of her kind to tread the frozen mountains of Yvelia in over a thousand years, Saeris mistakenly binds herself to Kingfisher, a handsome Fae warrior, who has secrets and nefarious agendas of his own. He will use her Alchemist’s magic to protect his people, no matter what it costs him… or her. Death has a name. It is Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate. His past is murky. His attitude stinks. And he’s the only way Saeris is going to make it home.
Be careful of the deals you make, dear child. The devil is in the details… Now with an embossed cover, silver foiling, and an updated interior design.
Book Information
Quicksilver
Published June 2024 by Forever.
Quicksilver was originally independently published by Callie Hart.
Audiobook narrated by Stella Bloom and Anthony Palmini.
Pages : 640 pages, Hardcover
Quicksilver Trigger Warnings
Rape of the protagonist’s mother & sex work mentioned, Suicidal ideation, Forced sterilization recounted, Blood, injury & gore depiction including decapitation & enemies, Murder & torture, War themes, & Extreme childhood poverty recounted.
Quicksilver Dedication
For those who live their nightmares, so that others may have their dreams.
Quicksilver Tropes
Fae, Vampires, Magic
Enemies-Allies-Lovers
Prophecy
Fated Mates
Political Intrigue
Review
Quicksilver by Callie Hart
Osha
“I’m Saeris Fane, apprentice to the Undying Queen’s master glass worker. I hail from the third spoke in the blessed wheel of the sacred Silver City.”
Here’s the thing, I was super fucking leery about Quicksilver. After sitting on my shelves for about a year, I finally decided to read it.
As always friends, there may be some spoilers in my notes. You can skip down to my Final Thoughts to avoid them.
- Well this world sounds downright brutal. I love it.
- Immortal Queen. Hello.
- The brother kinda sucks. *hayden
- Damn, I love when they are not a damsel.
- The Queen is delicious.
- Why all the Fae hate?
- Scream Captain, scream.
- Well hello Death.
- .. doesn’t know what a moon is? Did I hear that right. *I did. And it reminds me of Silo. Which, tangent.. should I read those books? ( I started the series.)
- Yanno, the kings/queens expect far too much from characters that are new to their kingdoms.
- Boy they don’t like Kingfisher.
- Just a drop of Fae blood seems unlikely.
- Brother?!
- So no one knows how to work the quicksilver?
- What happened to the Alchemists?
- Does anyone know anything?
- So it is sentient.
- I mean, I kinda like Carrion
- Because he’s falling for you.
- Carrion probably knows more about this world then
- Vampires!
- I like Kingfisher
- A temporary one. Sure. Wendy knows what’s up.
- I am vengeance.
- It’s about time you try to talk to it.
- Keep? Girl. Stop agreeing to shit without knowing Jack.
- I like the Quicksilver.
- We claim you. I love the sentience.
- There it is. Ours.
- His heart.
- The hair washing gets me every. Damn. Time. .
- The fuck is Annorath mor anyway or did I miss it?
- Man, I liked the sister.
- And Malcom wants Saeris
- At least she’s learning about dealing with Fae. Kinda.
- Oh there’s such a thing as a true mating bond now.
- Godbinding. So real.
- For centuries?!?
- Omg. Am I finally going to learn what Annorath mor means?
- Not the immortal Queen.
- Brother?!?
- I love Carrion.
- Not my man Carrion!
- Ohhh buddie.
- Bud, her ignorance is not shocking.
- Omg. Is this the Quicksilver?!?
Quicksilver by Callie Hart Review
Of course Death was beautiful. How else would anyone choose to go with him without putting up a fight?
I was pleasantly surprised with how much I ended up enjoying Quicksilver by Callie Hart. I had heard that the audiobook was well done and decided to do an immersive read. I can’t say for certain this is why I ended up enjoying it as much as I did, but it didn’t hurt. Quicksilver is a single pov story. The audiobook however has two voice actors. Stella Bloom brings our fmc Saeris to life along with the rest of the female characters. Anthony Palmini stars as Kingfisher as well as the rest of the male characters.
Quicksilver follows Saeris, a human living in Zilvaren, and I’m not going to lie, she kind of annoyed me. Saeris is argumentative, illogical and willfully ignorant. Which is fine in small doses, but it became grating after a few hundred pages. Plus side, she didn’t annoy me as much as her brother. Zilvaren is a brutal kingdom, the further from the center you travel, the more dangerous and deprived it becomes. Saeris is from one of the worst wards of Zilvaren and has become an accomplished thief in order to support her brother.
Saeris finds herself arrested and brought before the Immortal Queen. I loved the Queen, I wish there had been more of her in Quicksilver. Madra orders the execution of Saeris. Surprise, Surprise-Saeris has latent magical powers. Specifically, she can manipulate metal. While fighting for her life, Saeris unknowingly opens a portal to the Fae realm of Yvelia. Because of course, she has Fae ancestors. Not only that, Saeris is one of the rarest types of Fae there is, an alchemist.
Alchemy, it turned out, was a form of magic. Forgotten, long-dead, old magic that was as much a myth to the Fae of Yvelia as they were to the people of Zilvaren.
Enter Kingfisher. Listen, I hate this man’s name. And quite frankly, it is one of the reasons I was leery about reading Quicksilver. As it turns out, I ended up loving him. However, I like Carrion more. Team Swift baby. I would not be mad at a spin-off series about him when the Fae and Alchemy story line is complete. I would read the fuck outta that. The highlight for me throughout the entire book however was the Quicksilver itself. I loved how Hart took an inanimate metal and personified it, giving it agency and sentience.
There is a lot about Quicksilver that is predicable. That’s the thing with tropes, they are inherently predictable. It’s the world, plot and characters that sets one story apart from another. I enjoyed the world Hart created. The Quicksilver and the history of the Fae were intriguing. I wanted more. But unfortunately, Saeris didn’t care about trivial things like that.
It drives me nuts when the main character enters a new realm and refuses to learn about it. Which is precisely what Saeris does. What’s worse is that Saeris doesn’t even seem to want to learn about it, at all. Insisting the world bends to her whims and contributing to my dislike for her character. I often feel single pov stories are a crutch to replace world building. An ignorant character saves the author from having to fully flesh out a world.
I will be continuing the Fae & Alchemy series.
My soul was on fire, and I didn’t care if I burned for all eternity. So long as I was burning with him, then so be it.
Quotes
Quicksilver Quotes
Spice
Quicksilver Spicy Chapters
20, 22, 27 & 37
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