Very Brief Thoughts: Quicksilver

Quicksilver

by Amanda Quick
Book 11 of Arcane Society
-- Book 2 of Looking Glass Trilogy

~ Goodreads ~

Rating:  4.0 Stars

Virginia Dean wakes at midnight beside a dead body, with a bloody knife in her hand and no memory of the evening's events.  Dark energy, emanating from the mirrors lining the room, overpowers her senses.  With no apparent way in or out, she is rescued by a man she has met only once before, but won't soon forget.

Owen Sweetwater inherited his family's talent for hunting the psychical monsters who prey on London's women and children, and his investigation into the deaths of two glass-readers has led him here.  The high-society types of the exclusive Arcane Society would consider Virginia an illusionist, a charlatan, even a criminal, but Owen knows better.  Virginia's powers are real-and they just might be the key to solving this challenging case.

Quicksilver was a very quick read, with the same Amanda Quick formula that I love to love.  Owen Sweetwater and Virginia Dean are good people with a penchant for hunting monsters.  Side characters are great and readily likable.  The action and suspense is exciting.  And the romance is sweet and steamy in all the right places.

I'm always intrigued by the new psychic spectrum energies that get introduced with each next book of the Arcane Society, and the truth is, I DO prefer this Looking Glass sub-trilogy more than I do the Dreamlight sub-trilogy--for one thing, this one doesn't require employing the same story line in three different time periods, unlike Dreamlight.  The contemporary time period introduced some important players and names to recognize when we jump to the Victorian era, but then we are also given even more information, and a more in depth look at how glass light is employed.

I think it's and interesting concept.

The Quicksilver Mirror comes into play, and even though we don't get to actually meet or learn more about Mrs. Bridewell, the woman who created some dangerous clockwork curiosities infused with psychic energy, used as weapons, we get to actually meet her as well.  I would have liked for Millicent Bridewell to have had a bigger role in this book, but you take what you can get.

While Amanda Quick books are never entirely memorable, they are certainly always enjoyable.  As I've said, I did love the characters.

So, Quicksilver, was pretty much just another lovely installation to this ongoing series, and I look forward to the futuristic portion of the story arc.

Quick Thoughts: Quicksilver

Quicksilver

by R.J. Anderson
Book 2 (final) of Ultraviolet duology

~ Goodreads ~

Rating:  4.5 Stars

-- Spoiler Alert --

**Being that this is the second and final book in the Ultraviolet duology, the subsequent blurb and review may contain spoilers.  It is highly recommended that you do not proceed unless you have read the first book already because there was a pretty big twist at the ending of Ultraviolet.

This book was good. Very good. I never had any doubts it would be. Even if I still liked Ultraviolet better.

Quicksilver was every bit as amazing as I had expected it to be based on how much I loved its predecessor, Ultraviolet. This second book picks up right after the events of Ultraviolet with a few flashbacks and seamless backstory interlaced through Tori’s voice. While a little bit more exciting and intense than the previous book, Quicksilver has just the same amount of emotional FEELS that hit you where it hurts the most--a good kind of FEELS and a different kind from Ultraviolet.

And while I always try to give books their own merit, with books in series, it’s hard NOT to do some comparisons. And it’s not that I DID make a lot of comparisons between the duo, but I subconsciously admitted to myself that I maybe, personally, liked Ultraviolet more than I liked Quicksilver.

But that point is moot when, in the end, both books are simply amazing by their own rights.


The Official Story Blurb:

Back home Tori was the girl who had everything a sixteen-year-old could want—popularity, money, beauty. Everything. Including a secret. That secret made her very valuable.

Now she's left everything from her old life behind, including her real name and Alison, the only person who truly understood her. She can't lose the secret. But if she wants to have anything resembling a normal life, she has to blend in and hide her unique…talents.

Plans change when the enigmatic Sebastian Faraday reappears in Tori's life and delivers bad news: she hasn't escaped. In fact, she's attracted new interest in the form of an obsessed ex-detective now in the employ of a genetics lab.

She has only one shot at ditching her past for good and living like the normal human she wishes she could be. Tori must use every ounce of her considerable hacking and engineering skills—and even then, she might need to sacrifice more than she could possibly imagine if she wants to be free.

My Thoughts:
Aside from what I already mentioned, I’m not really sure what else to say. Sometimes there are books that are just good and that you just enjoyed and that you just loved a whole lot. And it’s as simple as that. So I apologize now for the extremely vague “Everything was awesome” slightly flat spiel following this paragraph. I’m just not sure how to express what I liked about this book other than the fact that I really liked it a lot.

Anyway...

I had been wary of reading via Tori’s perspective at first, since I hadn’t quite related with her from the first book. But you readily warm up to Tori, even with her slight penchant for the drama; then again, given her situation--running from an obsessed ex-detective and a genetics lab, hiding from the alien scientists who are still adamant about studying her like an animal--I guess a little bit of drama is merited.

But what I really loved about Quicksilver were the characters and even the extremely non-standard YA heroine presented to us by R.J. Anderson. Tori is definitely not the typical girl-next-door type even if that’s the personality she had presented with in Ultraviolet. And the more you learn about her, the more fascinated you become with the type of character she’s been created as. I don’t want to reveal too much, though there are enough reviews out there that already mention all her little secrets.

I loved how everything in this book isn’t what it seems and while some of the reveals aren’t so surprising, at least they weren’t too straight out predictable.

As with the first book, the writing is wonderful with descriptive images and attention to detail; the narrative descriptions were different from the way Ultraviolet had been told, which makes sense since Tori isn’t Alison and Alison’s POV was extremely unique due to her synesthesia. The engineering terms and jargon didn’t seem too difficult to process, nor did the author treat us like we weren’t smart enough to discern terms through context. There might have been some moments that dragged a little bit, but in the long run, the progression was smooth, the conflict was executed well, and everything tied together with more twists than even the first book had had.

On a side note, I have my issues with Faraday--he’s a lot less likable than he had been previously and I don’t know if it’s him or if it’s him through Tori’s POV that bugs me. I liked the introduction and presence of Milo Kim (yay! for diversity) and the friendship/relationship between Milo and Tori. The few scenes depicting Tori's new friendship with Alison were great. Tori's relationship with her parents had been depicted with lots of conflicting FEELS, both good and bad. And that was pretty much it with the characters of Quicksilver because the focus isn't too broad.

All-in-all, this sequel wraps up the Ultraviolet duology excellently!


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This book is a pre-chosen participant in the following Reading Challenge(s):

• 2015 TBR Pile Challenge hosted by Roof Beam Reader
• 2015 Reading Assignment Challenge hosted by Because Reading and Fantasy is More Fun

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This review was originally posted at Ani's Book Abyss / BookLikes in August 2015.

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