Summary:

What blood contaminates, only blood can cleanse.

The last city on Earth is contaminated. Now blood is the only thing that can wash it clean.
Julia is trapped inside the Blue as the Nobles fight over the few humans who are still alive. When the dust settles and she finds herself shackled to a new master, she knows she must escape or die.
Meanwhile, Cam has gathered a handful of comrades and is on his way into the Red to rescue his queen. But not all of his friends can be trusted, and not all of them will make it back alive.
The Silver Queen is the second book in Josie Jaffrey’s Sovereign trilogy, set in a dystopian Europe where vampiric Nobles control the last remnants of the human race.

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Thoughts:

The sequel to The Gilded King was even more exciting than the first book. After leaving off on a tiny bit of a cliffhanger (a teaser, really), this sequel picks up and swings us right into the thick of things.

For a good portion of the book we just don’t know which characters to trust, and neither do our protagonists. This adds tension to an already tense situation as our characters deal with the impending danger of an all out war on the immediate horizon. Meanwhile, back in Blue, Julia has to deal with being left on her own after Lucas has gone into the Red. With no protection and uncontaminated blood more scarce than ever, she’s basically a sitting duck. Now she wants to get out of Blue more than ever, especially after and old enemy reminds her what life can be like as an Attendant.

There’s a lot of great character development in this middle book. We see Julia come into her own here. She learns that she’s a survivor and is finally able to start making decisions for herself. Meanwhile Cam, who has been a tough nut to crack, learns to be vulnerable again, but he’s also smart about opening up, not willing to risk the safety of others for his own feelings.

The different views the characters have on the world and the way the future of it should go is interesting. They don’t all agree even if they are working together to meet the immediate goal of protecting Blue from the approaching army. Some are very much of a mind that they should let the contamination take over and turn everyone back into humans–let the Silver disappear and fade into a distant memory. And I can see this point! In a world where Silver depend on the uncontaminated humans for food, well it’s not exactly a symbiotic relationship when humans are treated like cattle. And eventually the uncontaminated humans would dwindle and with them, the Silver would become more and more desperate. It almost makes you understand the enemy who left the message ‘make no more silver’ in the blood of the Candidates. Kind of the way you almost understand Thanos in Avengers. I love when you can get the motivations of the bad guys, but definitely still condemn them for going about things in the absolute worst way. (Do NOT recommend the snap as a solution!) But then you also have those that are not willing to give up their extra strength and longer lives as Silvers. They don’t want to see their way of life end. And I can understand that too. I mean, living for thousands of years does have a certain appeal (I could finally catch up on my TBR pile!).

The pacing of this book was excellent. It helped that there was a lot of tension caused both by a race back to Blue, lots of good action scenes, and the different obstacles our protagonists and their friends faced–including some unexpected twists and turns. There is one thing that I’m pretty sure I managed to figure out which will come into play in the next book, if I’m right. Oooh, I can’t wait to find out if I’m right. (I hope I’m right!)

I’m really loving this series! This one has another little teaser at the end so uh-oh, I don’t know what’s in store for our characters but I hope they’re able to get some peace once the dust settles. Very much looking forward to diving into book three to see how things wrap up! 5/5 stars.