Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazingly Fun & Fast-Paced Book!, May 10, 2009
It's been sooo long since I've read a truly great book. Seriously. It's as if most of what I've been reading is like eating cotton candy when you're hungry. Sure, it satisfies your sweet tooth and your hunger, but after a few minutes and a swig of Coke, the sugary sweet rush has disappeared. And you're STILL hungry. Reading "Salt and Silver" by Anna Katherine was much more like eating your mom's good cooking...rich, comfortable, and satisfying.
"Salt and Silver" introduces us to Allie, a Brooklyn diner owner who, in her "past life" as a teenager, was a frivolous rich mallrat until her mother ran off with the tennis instructor...and all the family's fortune. Anyway, on a drunken binge night six years ago, Allie and her two best friends (Stan, an ex-skateboard geek who is now a gay club kid...and Amanda, still a frivolous mallrat and well on her way to a good case of cirrhosis) decided to dabble a bit in magic. Instead of granting her wish, the magic ended up opening a door to hell. Several moments after this new door popped into existence, a gorgeous leather-clad demon hunter called Ryan busts in to save the day - and chastise the unknowingly irresponsible Allie and friends.
Flash forward six years...Ryan has been staying at the diner in the basement near the door to prevent anything from escaping from hell. Come to find out, there are doorways to hell everywhere (including one underneath a local mall's "Bath and Body Works", which I found funny). His relationship with Allie has been mainly a complex one - him training her to defend herself in case of demon attacks mixed in with mutual unrequited longing for each other. One day, the diner's door to hell literally disappears. Gone. And no one knows why...all that they know is that it's never occured before AND that it's bad.
I really don't want to give any more away than this. "Salt and Silver" was, honestly, an excellent read. Funny, sweet, sad, and action-packed, you can't go wrong. In a genre (paranormal romance) that's lately been deluged with mediocrity (IMO, it's mostly due to NON-FANTASY and NON-PARANORMAL authors jumping on the bandwagon of the fastest growing romance genre & not being knowledgeable of the topic enough to handle the task), it's wonderful to (finally) find a truly great read.
Cheers!
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Descent of Allie, May 16, 2009
Blurbs for Salt and Silver use the word "romp" often enough that I was expecting something in the vein of paranormal chick lit. I was surprised, then, by the dark places Salt and Silver goes, and Anna Katherine's ability to both scare the daylights out of me and break my heart.
Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, given that the whole story is about going to, well, Hell.
Our heroine is Allie, once a spoiled rich girl, now a waitress. In the early days after she lost her fortune, she and her friends dabbled in magic and accidentally opened a portal to Hell. Allie's been dealing ever since with the nasty creatures the Door disgorges, with the help of Ryan, a gorgeous demon hunter.
Allie is snarky and a little flippant in the beginning, but even then it's obvious that her psyche is not a happy fun place. There's a sadness in her. Much of it has to do with her friends, Stan and Amanda, who are still living the hard-partying life Allie used to live. She is loyal to them, while at the same time knowing she's watching them self-destruct and not sure if there's any way to help them.
Then Allie's Hell portal vanishes, and things really get messy.
Allie, Ryan, and a group of hunters decide to venture into Hell to find out what's going on. When they get there, that's when Salt and Silver *really* gets good. The very first thing that happens upon their arrival? I won't spoil it, but it's incredibly creepy. It makes it painfully clear that anything can happen in the underworld, at any time.
Anna Katherine leads us through a series of underworlds, drawn from many cosmologies, some I recognized, some I didn't. They're all fascinating and some of them are horrific, and the most perilous of all are the ones that are shaped by the personal baggage Allie and her friends bring with them.
Anna Katherine's world-building is well-thought-out and well-executed, and I found myself more interested in the Hell dimensions than in the love story. I really enjoyed this, and I recommend it to fans of romantic fantasy.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fun, Funny, and Enjoyable, May 9, 2009
This book was everything I was hoping it would be - hilarious, engaging, and a universe that I could SEE. What surprised me (and shouldn't have) is that there are parts that are deeply touching, even sad. The best books manage to balance all of those things, just as Salt and Silver does.
The protagonist is glib, but I never read her as juvenile or ADD - rather, she read like someone who uses sarcasm as a shell.
Excellent work and fully enjoyable to read. I look forward to more from this author.
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