Rant & Rave- Silvana's Trial by Astrid V. J.

Hello All! I'm back with a rant & rave for Silvana's Trial by Astrid V. J. The book is short, and this post will be as well. I've been writing out blog posts for all the books I've read, but a couple authors have requested I hold off on posting until closer to their release date, so over the next month or so, you'll see quite a few posts completely out of order from the order I read them in. That being said, I did read one other book simultaneously with Silvana's Trial, so we'll start with that. Queens of Fennbirn by Kendare Blake contains two novellas in the Three Dark Crowns series. I really enjoyed one of the novellas, The Oracle Queen. This novella follows a queen referenced in the series, who supposedly went mad and became murderous. Of couse, in the novella, we learn that there's more to the story than history tells us. The other wasn't my favorite, but that might be because I had already read the entire series when I read it. While Queens of Fennbirn came out in the middle of the series, I'm glad I read it at the end. This way it feels like a dive back into a world I thought I was done with, without getting too invested in another whole story. On to Silvana's Trial. Silvana's Trial is a character driven romantasy novella, following crown princess Silvana as she is forced by convention into being a guide for the man who tortured and maimed her father. The man, Ned, is truly repentant, but the story shows Silvana's struggle with whether to forgive him or not. So let's rant: Silvana feels very juvenile for an eighteen year old woman. The book does explain that she grew up very sheltered, but it felt like Astrid A.J. picked some traits to be age appropriate or beyond her years and others to be juvenile based solely on advancing the plot. And let's rave: The novella does an excellent job fitting a fully developed romance plot into under 200 pages. I could see the development of the romance, the struggles faced, and the resolution, none of which felt rushed due to the length of the book. The emotions displayed in the book were realistically portrayed. The descriptions contained both a mental reaction and a physical reaction to each emotion, making the emotions easy to follow and even feel yourself as you read the book. So that's a brief overview of my thoughts on Silvana's Trial by Astrid V.J. and Queens of Fennbirn by Kendare Blake. Let me know if you agree in the comments. Up next will likely be The Head, The Heart and The Heir by Alice Hanov, but I know better than to make any promises at this point. As always, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments! Until next time! Dana