Silvertounge is a great story of magic in the modern day world that goes unnoticed by most normal humans(mundanes). The magic system is interesting, people gain magic by acquiring relics or focus’s that are ancient magical items. They have to have an affinity to bond with these and when they do they gain a specific power which is different depending on the person that bonds with it. Once bonded you can not be separated from it for to long or you will die. There are only a certain amount of these relics around so there are groups or crews of people that will hunt for them and take them from people to give to their own friends/allies or to sell for profit. All this goes on behind the scenes of the modern world with most none the wiser.
**Minor Spoilers of the beginning of the story follow ** The story follows John who knows nothing of this world but one day after a visit to McDonalds meets a worker who yells at him for being so stupid and using his powers so openly, John has no idea what he is talking about and the guy(Aidan) accuses him of speaking the Old Tongue and he will draw undue attention on himself which is dangerous. As John leaves he is accosted by a group of people dressed as policemen who he has a bad feeling about for good reason as they try to abduct him, he tries to struggle but doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere until Aidan comes out of nowhere and starts to fight off the guys with his impressive knife skills, he tells John to run and as John is running into the woods he sees Aidan get shot in the head. He is rightfully freaked out. As he is fleeing through the woods as he is being chased by some of the crew that is still after him, Aidan happens to pop up, none the worse for wear and helps John escape. Aidan is quite brash, jerky, mysterious and a bit condescending but a pretty good guy. We find out John has had a relic since he was a young kid and never knew it, it has given him the ability to understand and speak all languages which he has always hidden from everybody.
Once John is introduced to this new world and the dangers in it he must adapt to it and he ends up forming his own crew but not to hurt other people just to survive and help others like him in need but he is very out of his depth. It is fun to see his power grow and change and see him build his crew and deal with what comes. I really liked the characters and their friendships and interactions with each other. My main gripe with it is as John’s power progresses and he becomes able to order people to do what he says with just his voice that all he tells them to do even in life or death situations is to Stand Still, Sit Down etc. I really feel he could of done a lot more and been smarter with his commands.
I really enjoyed the book, thought the narration by Andrew Tell was great and am very interested in reading more books in the series to see how things turn out.
“Please note I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.”