ALC Review: The Silversmith by LJ Claren
- Story Eater
- 12 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Release date: 10 March 2026 (Audio), 13 July 2025 (indie), 24 February 2026 (B5 republish)
Rating: 2/5 story, 4/5 narration
Narrators: Savannah Thomas, Aiden Snow
Synopsis: A royal secret. A dangerous power. And a love that may conquer all—or destroy everything.
Still reeling from the deaths of her father and brother, Ary Gold survives only by sheer will in the icy wilds of the North. But when friends arrive with stories of long-lost magic and a power buried in her newly discovered royal blood, Ary is thrust into a fate far larger than her sorrow.
The realm of Nyrida is under threat. An ancient shadow wielder has risen, determined to claim Ary's power and plunge the world into corrupted darkness. To stop him, Ary must marry the commander she's been promised to—a man whose army could help them win the war—and train to fight alongside him.
But her fiercest challenge may not be on the battlefield.
Assigned to shape her into a warrior is a man cloaked in violence and secrets. Cold, commanding, and maddeningly unreadable, he isn't her betrothed . . . but he may be her undoing. As sparks fly and loyalties are tested, Ary must decide whether to follow the path laid out for her—or risk everything for a love as wild and dangerous as the power awakening inside her.
Review
I read this on a sort-of recommendation from a bookish friend. The premise and circumstances around the plot and story feel familiar, most notably from another recent indie release picked up by a B5 publisher with a character who must train to fight to save a kingdom and falls in love with her trainer. Had this not been an audiobook with good narration, I would have most definitely DNF'ed it for lack of originality and terrible presentation.
The overuse of adjectives and overabundance of errors in the grammar and usage of the text served most prominently to put me off the story almost immediately. It took a while, but I settled into the book by managing to find some sort of rhythm to get me through. The typical female lead with long, white (silvery-blond) hair crops up again in another romantasy. Patricia McKillip's The Forgotten Beasts of Eld would be a great read for folks who would like to know the particular origin of that (what is now become) caricature. That, a couple of smiles that didn't reach a character's eyes, and some other repetitive tropes and such made the story dull for me. I know many readers enjoy familiar things when reading; I would rather have something that hasn't been done—or overdone—before to keep my brain from growing bored.
I have also noticed an increase in grammatical errors cropping up in books published lately—and from books published across all methods. Most notably, pronouns in the object position, such as objects of prepositions and direct objects, have been subject pronouns instead. For example, the direct object of the verb “followed” should be "me" and not "I," and the object of the preposition "between" should also be "me" and not "I." Several other errors sprinkled among the text made my eye remain in a permanent state of twitch, but this book is certainly not the only on the market in the past few years to be rife with such errors.
On a brighter note, the narration was well done; and as with many good narrations, they can certainly make a story more palatable. Snow's deep voice will certainly please romance listeners, and Thomas' crystalline reading lulled me into listening even when I didn't really want to. Honestly, some of these narrators should read textbooks. I'm convinced a physics class would be exponentially easier to get through if the textbook were read as if it were an audiobook.
Overall, 2/5 for the book and 4/5 for the narration. Kudos to the narrators for making trite stories interesting enough to finish.
My thanks to Libro.fm for the ALC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.
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