Silvara
Written on Jan 10, 2016
I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
The synopsis is slightly misleading, in that it says Ivy is invited to take Scarlet's place and she agrees. She gets a letter telling her a place has opened up for her, and that her school fees have already been paid. So she really doesn't get a choice about going to the school or not. And once there, she is told point blank that she is going to pretend to be Scarlet.
She agrees to do so in order to find out what happened to her sister. However, since she was basically threatened into doing it, the synopsis description sounds a lot more benign.
Miss Fox reminded me a bit of Umbridge from Harry Potter. Mostly because of her office being covered in dogs, the way Umbridge did kittens. Equally creepy, and she was even meaner and more nasty than Umbridge in the way she treated the students of the school.
I liked the way Ivy had to decipher the riddles her sister left her. And how her friendship with Ariadne grew. I also really liked the dance instructor. The way they found the clues, and how the story was revealed through the diary entries, was fun.
I wish there had been a bit more at the end of the book, where it left off left me too many questions! Not so many that I'm not looking forward to the next book, but enough that I think another page or two could have been added at the least. There were a few slow bits, but overall I really liked the book and will be looking for the next one in the series.
This review was originally posted on Fantasy of the Silver Dragon