Series: Ironskin # 3
Published by Tor Books
Release Date: October 7, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 272, pages
*Book Blurb*
The final book in this series will jump forward 18 years and feature Dorie, Jane's young charge from Ironskin.
18 years later . . .
Dorie Rochart has been hiding her fey side for a long time. Now, finished with University, she plans to study magical creatures and plants in the wild, bringing long-forgotten cures to those in need. But when no one will hire a girl to fight basilisks, she releases her shapechanging fey powers--to disguise herself as a boy.
While hunting for wyvern eggs, she saves a young scientist who's about to get steamed by a silvertail-- and finds her childhood friend Tam Grimsby, to whom she hasn't spoken in seven years. Not since she traded him to the fey. She can't bear to tell him who she really is, but every day grows harder as he comes to trust her.
The wyverns are being hunted to extinction for the powerful compounds in their eggs. The fey are dying out as humans grow in power. Now Tam and Dorie will have to decide which side they will fight for. And if they end up on opposite sides, can their returning friendship survive?
*My Thoughts*
Silverblind is the final installment in the Ironskin series. The story features Adora ‘Dorie’ Rochart who readers met as a 5 year old child in the book Ironskin. 18 years later, Dorie has graduated from college and is in search of her first job. Dorie wants to work as a field researcher for Queen’s Lab but because she is a woman and her fey beauty, she is shoved aside for her male compatriots.
It has been 7 years ago since Dorie betrayed her cousin Thomas "Tam" Grimsby, and put her fey side away in a box to live as a human. Now, with opportunities slipping away, Dorie transforms herself into Dorian Eliot. As a man, Dorian ends up working for Queen's Lab searching for Wyvern's eggs that have the ability to not only kill the fey, but cure the called Ironskin (humans infected by fey). She also comes face to face with the one person she has a whole lot to make up for; Tam.
I will say that Dorie is a very interesting and likable character. In today's society, Dorie would be called a social justice champion. She truly wants to help both the Fey find a way home, and to heal the Ironskin who have suffered for 20 years like her stepmother Jane. Dorie doesn't use her fey side to hurt anyone. Dorie makes some interesting choices in doing what she wants to redeem herself for past actions while helping others heal from years of pain and suffering.
It was fun to see Dorie and her baby Wyvern Woglet, as well as the struggles she has trying to be a man, instead of a woman. Tam and Dorie's relationship isn't a romantic one. Not by far. It is one that has too much history attached to just allow the two of them to walk away and never have a chance to be happy or to make up for past mistakes. I liked the flashbacks that Connolly offers, as well as the different chapters which contain useful information about the world that Connolly has created.
I don't believe that you necessarily have to go back and read the first two novels which feature Dorie's stepmother Jane, and her aunt Helen in order to understand this trilogy. I do encourage you to go back and read the first two books if you enjoy Steampunk. Connolly's world building is unique, with a blend of steampunk and paranormal that should appeal to a wide blend of readers.
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