The Silver Ones

Rating: 4 out of 5

Women are unexpectedly waking up with silver hair and blue eyes- humans who have innate magic in their veins. A power that shifter wolves are hungry to utilize... to the point of abducting Rem from her home. Rem's life no longer matters when an Elder Witch ensnares her in a binding death curse, threatening the life of her younger brother. The only way to break the curse is to convince the Alpha of Warden to choose her as his mate before he chooses another Silver. The Alpha suspects things are not as they seem. When a romance starts to bud Rem is torn between loyalties, making life-threatening decisions while hoping to untangle herself from a web of pack betrayals. In the midst of the chaos... Rem can't stop asking: Why her? Why is she the chosen one to bear the curse? Why does the Elder Witch demand she mate Alpha Ronan? And why does she enjoy the touch of Ronan so much when she has to betray him?

This book was a little bit of a slow start because the author was doing a lot of world and character building, which was great. I think it was a needed element to provide the details for the reader. It was a little annoying at times because so much was intentionally left up to speculation because of the Elder Witch and her plans. The idea was a different one than I have encountered before with humans who had wolf blood which was somehow activated. Each character is given a distinct and elaborate personality which engrosses you in the story. It quickly becomes obvious that some elaborate scheme is at play involving the Silvers, Rem in particular. The Silvers it turns out have a lot of power that a number of people want to manipulate in order to win an ongoing war between the humans and supernaturals.

The romance element of the story is very slow and at times infuriatingly so. Rem and Ronan have a language barrier that makes conversation between the two impossible without a translator. Luckily, one becomes fast friends with Rem. Part of the curse keeps Rem from speaking about her problems or she will lose her voice. It honestly seemed like she could have risked it since they didn't speak the same language anyway. I realize she needed to build a relationship first though. The story picked up a lot towards the last 200 pages or so and we see a relationship actually developing between Rem and Ronan, but he is very reluctant to make her his Luna. The book ends without wrapping up the status of their relationship and with a lot of loose ends. I can't wait for the second one because I need to know what comes next, and now that the world building is out of the way, there should be more time for romance.