Salt and Silver [Mass Market Paperback]

Anna Katherine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 2009

When trust fund baby-turned-waitress Allie and her friends accidentally open a Door to Hell in the basement of Sally’s Diner, they don’t realize the havoc it will wreak on their Brooklyn neighborhood. Of course, the upside to murder-happy demons coming through the Door all the time is that Allie gets her own sexy and mysterious demon hunter: the dark-eyed, leather-clad, Stetson-wearing Ryan.

Ryan teaches Allie everything he knows about fighting the creatures of the underworld—but refuses to give in to the sexual tension that simmers between them.  Allie has almost given up on taking her relationship with Ryan to the next level when there’s a surge in demonic activity... and the Door disappears.

Now Allie and Ryan have to travel through Hell, literally, to try to stop Hell from taking over the Earth. They may not survive the trip, but Allie is about to discover something very important: Mortal peril is a total turn-on.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. This lively tale of demons and gods, the debut effort of Katherine Macdonald and former Tor editor Anna Genoese, opens six years after witty, sarcastic Allie, a trust fund baby turned Brooklyn diner manager, inadvertently generates a door to hell in the diner's basement with the help of her childhood friend Stan. Leather-clad demon fighter Ryan shows up in response and soon becomes Allie's love interest. Now new doors are beginning to appear, leaving the human world vulnerable to invaders from the underworld. As Allie, Stan and Ryan join forces with a witch and rival clans of demon hunters in hopes of restoring balance between supernatural beings and human "mundanes," Genoese and Macdonald mix multiple mythologies into a charming, biting cautionary narrative about taking responsibility for one's actions.

Review

“Allie is the newest heroine on the scene, trading designer clothes for demon slaying. Her first adventure is filled with interesting twists on paranormal creatures, and the story is one of a kind.”--Romantic Times BOOKreviews (4 ½ stars)

“Mix[es] multiple mythologies into a charming, biting cautionary narrative about taking responsibility for one’s actions.”--Publishers Weekly Online (starred review)

"A fantastic debut--a fun and sexy romp."--Susan Kearney, USA Today bestselling author

"With a smart, sassy, and brave heorine whose life has changed dramatically, Salt and Silver makes a clever, action-packed story. Fast-paced and humor-laced."--Romance Reviews Today

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; Original edition (April 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765363046
• ISBN-13: 978-0765363046
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #759,108 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly Fun & Fast-Paced Book!, May 10, 2009

By 

Andrea Griffin "Avid Reader" (Sterling Heights, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Salt and Silver (Mass Market Paperback)

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!

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Descent of Allie, May 16, 2009

By 

Kelly (Fantasy Literature) (Columbia, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Salt and Silver (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

34 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Save Yourself, September 24, 2009

By 

Dianne E. Socci-Tetro "Books & Chat" (Connecticut, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Salt and Silver (Mass Market Paperback)

I should have listened to the very wise person who said "never judge a book by it's cover" (or it's back cover blurb!) and stayed away from Salt and Silver. My book allowance would have been better spent elsewhere, and I wouldn't be bemoaning the hours I wasted reading this book.
A very, very brief recap of the book --- One day 6 years ago a Allie (the protagonist)and two of her drunk and presumably drugged best friends, open a door to Hell in the basement of a diner in Brooklyn. Enter sexy demon hunter Ryan one of many hunters who guard these doors and fight whatever comes out. The factions of demon hunters are distinguished by the type of hat they wear. Six years later the doors are doing an unusual thing; disappearing and or multiplying seemingly willy-nilly. I'm sorry but there really isn't much of a story to recap---I can tell you that Allie has a crush on Ryan, her best friends are still drunks and druggies, and eventually (around 2/3 into the book) Allie, Ryan and several other hunters go on a hunt to find out what is wrong with the doors.

I am so surprised to see a book like this being marketed as adult paranormal romance---this was not a book written for adults, nor was it romantic. Allie is not a "kick-butt" heroine, as a matter or fact she spends most of the time bemoaning the fact that Ryan doesn't seem to return her feelings. Allie was more of a caricature of a junior high, or high school girl, yet she is supposed to be a few months shy of 30. The language is over done "teen-speak" (I asked the teens that I know and none of them talk this way)peppered with lame sarcasm, the story drags horribly, there is no action, it takes 2/3's of the book to have anything remotely interesting happen. There was very, very little character growth for either of the main characters and as for the secondary characters; there is very little to recommend about them.

If you are looking for a good, well plotted and written Kick-Butt heroine, then stick with books from Patricia Briggs, early Laurell K Hamilton, C T Adams & Cathy Clamp or Karen Marie Moning.