Name: Silk & Steel
ISBN: 9781838185107

Ariana Nash

A tormented dragon prince. A captured elven assassin. Duty demands they fight for their people but love has other plans. Eroan, one of the last elven assassins, lives for one purpose: kill the queen. He would have succeeded if not for her last line of defense: Prince Lysander. Now, captured and forced into the queen's harem, Eroan sees another opportunity. Why kill just the queen when he can kill them all? It would be simple, if not for the troubled and alluring dragon prince. A warrior, a killer, and something else... something Eroan finds himself inexplicably drawn to. Trapped in a life he despises, Lysander knows his time is running out. If the queen doesn't kill him for his failures, her enemies will. There's nothing left to live for, until an elf assassin almost kills him. A stubborn, prideful, fool of an elf who doesn't know when to quit. An elf who sparks a violent, forbidden desire in Lysander. If Lysander can't save himself, maybe he can save the elf and maybe, just maybe... one stubborn elf will be enough to bring down the queen before her reign brings death to them all. Complete Series Reading Order: Silk & Steel, Silk & Steel, #1 Iron & Fire, Silk & Steel, #2 Blood & Ice, Silk & Steel, #3 Also in this world: The Black Prince

Silk & Steel

Sabetha Danes

"Silk & Steel is not a "romance"." 😂😂😂😂😂

My biggest pet peeve as a reader is when author miss represent their book. Genres work because they let the reader know what the book is. Lying about it hurts the readers that will be mad, and the readers that are missing out on discovering it. 

If I were to rate this as a Dark Fantasy it would be a one star. It wasn't dark, dealt with zero dark themes, and lacked in any of the tropes that would make it a Dark Fantasy. Dark Fantasy does NOT mean erotica.

Thankfully, as an erotica reader I still appreciated this book. The main plot is sex. Lots of sex, everyone is having sex with everyone. Wanting to have sex with someone is what is literally moving the story forward at some points. 

The sub-plot is a war between the dragon shifters and humans and elves. Which was also a great minor story, nice world building and intriguing ideas. But it was NOT dark fantasy, just epic fantasy.

If you love erotica in your epic fantasy, this is a great book. If you're looking for something that is dealing with the grey in morals, fantasy that terrifies your mind after reading it, this is NOT that book. 

This book is in fact, a romance. It is also erotica, harems, m/m, insesty and vulgar. And it should own that, not deny it. Because those things deserve to be seen by the audience that loves them.

Katerina Thorson

3/3⭐️

This was a wonderful read. It contained a lot of things I disliked and loved. So let’s just get into it shall we!

TRIGGER WARNING: this book does contain explicit r*pe scenes, abuse, incest, gore, and kidnapping.

There were so many things I loved and my biggest love was Lysander. This little cinnamon roll, I just can’t with my heart. This man has literally been dealt the fuckiest of fucked up cards that anyone in history could be dealt. He is a man that likes men, which is seen as a weakness in the amethyst dragon tribe, his mother is the fucking wicked witch of every direction, he is considered broken and the only thing he is told to be good for is breeding. I mean seriously how messed up is that.

However, all this changes when a elf stumbles into his life - attempting to kill the bitch queen - and he starts to rethink his views on the prejudice between elves and dragons.

Also I found Lysander’s character build to be the best of all the characters.

Of course, then there is Eroan. An assassin elf with one mission only. Bring down the dragon queen and to do this he decides to allow himself to be a slave. Obviously he didn’t take into account the handsome dragon prince who seems to save him at every turn.

There are a lot of things I liked about the plot and world build. I loved how unique it was. This idea of a dystopian world where humans are almost extinct, elves are on the verge of being extinct, and dragons are the dominating prey. The prejudice views you see between all these creatures is definitely justified as they all have been attempting kill each other for some time.

However, that being said. There were a lot of plot holes, a lot of chapters that dragged on and I literally skipped 4 chapters and still knew what was going on because they seem to be reiterating what happened. I also felt like there was ALOT of back history to this world missing. I mean we get an idea that humans used to be there and countries like France, Spain, America existed but how the fuck did it go extinct and dragons take over?

And then there was the writing. It definitely shows that this was a debut novel. A lot of misspelled words, weird sentence groups, and sometimes just weird information given. It was like middle-grade writing just worse. 

I heard that the series gets better as the books go on, so I am going to hold out hope! 

I want to see how the relationship between Eroan and Lysander grows. I want to see more of these human tribes. And I definitely need to know more after that ending!!!