ARC Review: Silver Throat by Siri Pettersen

Title: Silver Throat

Author: Siri Pettersen, Tara Chace (translator)

Series: Vardari #2

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher: Arctis

Publication Date: February 25, 2025

Edition: Ebook

Source: NetGalley

Pre-Order: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | BAM | Bookshop | Powell's | 

Synopsis:

    The second book in the International bestselling Vardari series, Silver Throat continues where book one left off. 

   After Juva lets Grif out into the world and he escapes Naklav, it seems the Vardari should no longer be able to live, without their source of eternal life, and the city should finally be free of wolf disease. But Juva’s plan has failed and the epidemic is now spreading. Caught between an idle city council and the immortals desperate fight for the last drops of life-giving blood, Juva must team up with a fanatic priest to save Naklav from destruction. But she soon realizes she may have trusted the wrong person, and the scar left by Grif’s leaving is deeper than she thought.

   The gripping Vardari adventure continues in Book 2 - full of secrets, romance, and twists you won't see coming!

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 This book felt more slow-paced than book 1. I don't know if it's my headspace, or if something about the narrative in this book was slower. I found myself disconnecting from things while reading a lot of the time. I kept wanting things to get to the point, and I sometimes didn't care what was going to happen to the characters. Juva made a lot of really dumb decisions in this book, and it reminded me that she made a lot of really dumb decisions in the first book as well. 

I am really invested in the setting, even if I can't always picture it. That is the downside to this ebook, it doesn't have a map. That makes it hard to visualize where things are, and with a lot of the book being set in one city, where everyone is always running around I could've really used a map. 

I still don't understand what the dynamic between Juva and Grif. I didn't understand it in the first book, and I still don't really understand who they are supposed to be to each other. 

 

The political schemes do have a large focus in this book, which I do appreciate, it just bothers me that everyone is kind of dumb. Juva keeps expecting people to do the right thing or at the very least have some self preservation, and it keeps backfiring. 

As frustrating as a lot of these characters were through this book, I'm still invested in what's to come in the next book.