Silver Elite

by Dani Francis ★★★★★

Wren Darlington grew up in isolation. Spirited away by her military parents to live with a family friend, she was sent to a remote part of the Continent to prevent those in power from discovering her gifts. Wren, you see, is one of the Modified, those who developed special powers following the nuclear war that destroyed most of the planet one hundred years prior. Modified have one or more of a series of mental abilities. They can be Telepaths, Projectors, Mind Readers, Healers, Empaths, Precogs, or Inciters. Wren doesn't just have one; has four. She also has a very special variation. The Modified (or "Mods") are also known as silverbloods, because when they use their abilities, the veins in their arms turn silver. Wren's do not, and so she can essentially operate undercover.

In addition to "Modified" and "silverblood", there's another name those with these special skills are known as: The Aberrant. Twenty-five years prior, there was a coup, and an iron-fisted leader named General Redden took over control of the Continent. His first order of business was to discover all Modified. Once identified, he tattooed them with thin black bands around their left wrist, provided they pledged loyalty,. Those who didn't pledge received a red band and became slaves. That's if they were lucky. As Wren puts it, "It could be easy to mistake Redden's actions for mercy, even tolerance, if not for the fact that very few tattoos can be spotted on the Continent. In other words, the General's preferred Mod is a dead one. He killed so many of us in the Silverblood Purge, tens of thousands, only sparing the ones he considered useful."

When Wren is detained and interrogated after a public execution, she is suspected of being part of the Uprising, a group of anti-government resistance fighters determined to bring back freedom for the Modified. Despite her convincing denials, she's told that the farm that she lived and worked on has been reassigned, and she has only one path forward: to join the Program, which trains residents to become part of Silver Block, the high-end fighting force of the Command, the military arm of the government. Wren has no choice in the matter, and so she goes along with the plan until she can determine a way to escape.

There is no shortage of novels focused on teens or twenty-somethings vying at a university / war college / training program in a dystopian or fantasy setting that includes some element of semi-magical abilities. Throw in some romance, and you've checked all the typical boxes. It's not a new formula, but darn it if these don't just continue to entertain me and millions of others. Silver Elite puts its own special spin on it, with a slightly inventive system of magical abilities (although one that's not without some inconvenient barely-closed loopholes), and with a few additional layers of storytelling that bumped it just over the 4-5 threshold for me. Wren is worth rooting for, and her journey through the Program kept me hooked. There is plenty of sexual tension, too, and while this reads mostly like a YA novel, the spice level definitely crescendos to adult levels of intensity.

It wasn't until I had finished the novel that I realized that Dani Francis is a pseudonym and that the identity of the author of Silver Elite is kept tightly under wraps. Many speculate that it was written by a prominent romantasy author, and the name most often suggested is Jennifer L. Armentrout. She's certainly prolific enough to make it a possibility, but because she's so prolific it makes it hard for me to think she'd have time for another 500-page novel.

Who do I think Dani Francis is? If I'm casting a vote, I'm going with Rebecca Yarros. A strong female lead character, a training program that seems similar to Basgiath War College (minus the dragons), drawn out sexual tension, and a big reveal and cliffhanger ending all evoke memories of Fourth Wing. With the immense hype and the mounting pressure around The Empyrean, I can imagine Yarros wanting to enjoy a bit of anonymity and publish a book that's quite good without dealing with the inevitable comparisons to the most popular series on the planet, not to mention the questions about why she isn't spending all of her time on Book 4! I know she's suggested she needs a break, and she's under contract to write a contemporary romance novel before returning to The Empyrean, but I'm sticking with my guess. If you read Silver Elite, you'll see the many similarities.

The most important similarity: it's a good book! I wouldn't put it fully on par with Fourth Wing, but it was consistently entertaining, and if you're feeling the need to scratch that Empyrean itch during the long wait for Book 4, this will almost certainly get the job done. Plus, the sequel Broken Dove comes out in 2026, so you won't have to wait long to return to Wren's story. Recommended.