Silver and Blood - Jessie Mihalik (Duology #1)

 Silver and Blood was a 4 star read for me! I was sold on the second book in the last paragraph of the book (*insert John Hamm GIF*).

The characters were likable, I loved the notes passed between the MC's, the world building/ magic system were thorough and easy to understand. The dialogue and narration portrayed authentic snark/sarcasm that is easy to miss the mark on. The nicknames were chef's kiss, the tension was excellent, the jealousy had me kicking my feet. I really enjoyed it, overall.
Not being a fan of the "miscommunication trope" made me side eye a lot of driving factors for the storyline, but that is all opinion based. The world building was thorough; however, I did find it to be clunkily explained. I realize that having a prologue or huge chunk of the beginning dedicated to world building drags out in an unfortunate way; but I do feel like it could have been slipped into conversation or observation a little more smoothly.
Piggy backing off the miscommunication trope mention from earlier: I did find a lot of the second half to be redundant. It adds realism to have people traveling back and forth to a location and not just have things solved the first/second time the MC's go-- there were so many repetitive scenes of traveling back and forth between realms that seemed to feed the miscommunication more than what I thought the plot. I felt like the character growth was mentioned to be occurring (like a realization would be noted);-- then in the next chapter, with no negative storyline between the MC's they were back to acting like they didn't trust each other again. Not trusting a stranger is a *reasonable* way to add that trope so heavily-- just needed a little more consistent portrayal of trust being built/given.

I would have given the book like a 3.75 star rating because the redundancy and heavy focus on that specific trope-- that ending was just a *perfect* lead in to the next book though and I cannot wait to read it!!