Silver Elite by Dani Francis Review

In the first book of a sizzling dystopian romance series, psychic gifts are a death sentence and there are rules to Trust no one. Lie to everyone. And whatever you do, don’t fall for your greatest enemy.
 

TRUST NO ONE.
 

Wren Darlington has spent her whole life in hiding, honing her psychic abilities and aiding the rebel Uprising in small ways. On the Continent, being Modified means certain death—and Wren is one of the most powerful Mods in existence. When one careless mistake places her in the hands of the enemy and she’s forced to join their most elite training program, she’s finally handed the perfect opportunity to strike a devastating blow from inside their ranks.
 

LIE TO EVERYONE.
 

But training for Silver Block can be deadly, especially when you’re harboring dangerous secrets and living in close quarters with everyone who wants you dead.
 

AND WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T FALL FOR YOUR GREATEST ENEMY.
 

As the stakes grow ever higher, Wren must prove herself to Silver Block. But that’s easier said than done when your commanding officer is the ruthless and infuriatingly irresistible Cross Redden, who doesn’t miss anything when it comes to her. And as war rages between Mods like her and those who aim to destroy them, Wren must decide just how far she’s willing to go to protect herself . . . and how much of the Continent is worth saving.

Massively popular and trending online, Silver Elite is the start of a new series marketed as a dystopian romance, a “sizzling” story of distrust and self-preservation for those that possess innate psychic gifts. As is often the case with books that take off on social media, one’s enjoyment of this book likely comes down to one’s expectations and hopes for the book. If you’re looking for the next exciting dystopian action thriller like the Hunger Games or strong social commentary featured in the Giver, Silver Elite is definitely going to be a frustrating disappointment. However, for those looking for a booktok-style romance novel set within a vague dystopian world, Silver Elite is a lot more compelling. Expecting the latter going into it, Silver Elite more or less met my expectations of being a messy, yet decent read if one can overlook its many rough edges.

At first glance at its premise and opening, Silver Elite appears to be a cool modern take on the dystopian genre. Despite the addition of various psychic powers, in many ways the story feels like an aged up take on Veronica Roth’s Divergent series, featuring adult characters instead of minors and their frequent wandering lusty eyes. Immediately throwing the reader into the story with Wren stealthily attempting to escape the morning after a one-night stand only to end up in the bedroom of another sexy stranger, Dani Francis makes it very clear from the get-go where the novel’s priorities are. The book’s focus on its steamy enemies-to-lovers romance is one of the biggest factors as to whether one should read this, as the book always prioritizes its romance story first, dystopian story second. Although Silver Elite technically falls under the dystopia genre due to its world and themes, in actuality the dystopian elements merely provide narrative flavor and context around its central tense romance (I’ll elaborate on that shortly). I don’t think a term really exists for this less common sub-genre yet, but this is whatever the dystopian equivalent of romantasy is to regular fantasy.

Fortunately, one of the best elements of the story for me is its core romance and snappy banter between Wren and Cross. While their relationship dynamics follows common territory of an impulsive, rebellious rural woman against the cool, collected, and smirking soldier official, their chemistry works quite well and natural (compare this to how immature, imbalance, and cringe also popular Quicksilver’s main couple is). Not only do they have good back and forth verbal sparring, but certain small personal quirks and mannerisms add a lot of charm to their interactions, particularly Cross’s nickname of Wren, mockingly slandered as Dove. For those that are sensitive to it, Silver Elite does have rather eye-rollingly insta-attraction and thirst to it, but that could also be a positive point for others so who am I to judge.

While the plot and dystopian elements are mostly utilized as various plot mechanisms to move along and shape the novel’s forbidden romance, the story outside the romance isn’t half bad if one doesn’t read too deep into the book’s details. The pseudo thriller plot features quite a few compelling elements such as persecution and execution of those with powers, mind control/telepathy/shielding, elite covert soldier training, and the self-survival narrative within the heart of the enemy trope. While the dystopian elements of Silver Elite are by no means creative or unique, they smartly pull from some of the biggest and most popular hits of the YA dystopian wave. While its psychic abilities are unique to this series, the core concept of hiding and training in secret among the enemies is right out of Divergent, but Silver Elite gives better narrative context with its larger, albeit simple lore and history. While certainly not nuanced or complex, the conflict and tension between the Uprising and the Company is serviceable. While Wren’s capture and training arcs are comfortingly familiar or underwhelmingly bland depending on one’s familiarity with dystopian reads, the latter half’s field operations and missions are entertaining and fast-paced, as well as its last third that lean into refreshingly new territory.

When reading this novel, the best way to enjoy it is likely to turn off one’s brain and just go along with whatever dystopian lore it pulls out of the hat next. While perfectly fine as popcorn casual entertainment, any second glance or attention to detail quickly derails the reading experience. While the plot itself is predictable but decent (occasionally approaching great when it pulls off a rare effectively setup plot twist), the world-building in this novel is an utter disaster that’s difficult to ignore. The world, lore, and details in the story are all over the place and often conflict with each other. Besides utilizing the contentious powerful and special one trope, the story consistently feels like it’s making up “the continent”, factions, and political tension on the fly and its habit of throwing out lore-specific terms and abilities through info-dumping leaves much to be desired. The Company uses military-style guns, knives, weapons and helicopter planes for combat much like present day, yet each member has futuristic sci-fi personal devices, ID tracking, not to mention a random impenetrable force field that one can smash themselves on; don’t even think about wondering how an arbitrarily placed force field is powered, designed, or can even function without limits, the barrier is mentioned once in the book and never again. You have people that are modified/psychic powered due to exposure to a biotoxin that contaminated the whole world (again, don’t bother asking how it contaminated the entire world and wiped most of the population) and those that were immune to it called Prime, and then have multiple different terms for the same group of modified individuals for no reason except to make the lore more “complex”. And of those Prime members or those that are high-ranking and rich in society, they send their children to train in the Silver Forces for what reason exactly, knowing that there is a high likelihood they will perish in the field? And then you have modified individuals working within the Company considered traitors by their own people who use their powers against others on behalf of those in power, never mind that it’s shown on multiple occasions they could simply dominate and take over themselves if they wanted to (one power is to incite or control others, why is the Commander out about in public when literally anyone with this power could kill him on the spot with little psychic defense?). Accused of being a mod and interrogated, Wren is then recruited for training when she’s clearly suspiciously linked to a major public disaster event and an inherent risk worth taking simply because she has good aim with a rifle? These are just a few of the numerous baffling world-building choices and plot holes that are present no matter where you look in this story. I personally got a lot of unintentional amusement out of how comically nonsensical or poorly incorporated certain developments were.

Disappointing world-building aside, the dystopian elements feel like they’re copied and pasted into this story simply because they were popular, not because they make narrative sense. While optimistically one can say Silver Elite is giving a nod to the established hits of the past, some of its concepts are so blatantly borrowed that it’s difficult to enjoy. A particular scene involving Wren shooting a canteen at target practice is ripped right out of the first Hunger Games book and the way the rest of the story progresses is nearly a one for one retelling of Divergent until about 70% into the book, aged up. But even that comparison comes with an added footnote. Despite being marketed as a sizzling and adult take on the dystopian genre, it has the prose and finesse of an unflattering YA novel or fanfic. Copious amounts of verbal swearing, horny visual descriptions and explicit sex scenes do not automatically earn a book the “adult” classification, with Francis’s writing and tone incredibly casual and unprofessional. While not necessarily required given its content, there’s no semblance of literary lyricism or finesse to be had anywhere in this book.

Additionally, despite having a cast of characters in your early 20’s and 30’s, the characters speak and act like they’re teenagers and likewise have very thinly constructed characterizations and personalities. Outside of Wren and Cross, every character has simply a singular character trait, maybe two if they’re lucky like Lyddie and Kaine. Despite being a young adult, Wren also acts like an angsty and ill-advised teenager for nearly the entire book and can be quite trying to read about. She has a habit of flip-flopping or saying one thing while doing the opposite, which one could maybe argue is a sign of her internal conflict and loyalties, though more often than not it’s due to poor planning with the plot and throwing out uncharacteristic surprises to try and add more excitement. Besides the internal conflicts, she also has the common habit of repeatedly making really poor decisions with terrible character logic, self-sabotaging herself in the process (a good counter example is the smart and resourcefulness of Violet Sorrengail from Fourth Wing). Normally these could be given a partial pass in the name of character growth over time, but Silver Elite is over 500 pages and Wren’s internal thoughts and struggles are repetitive and tiring over and over. At least 100 pages could’ve probably been cut from the first half of the book’s training arc very little of value would be lost for the sake of better pacing.

Is Silver Elite the best written dystopian story or romance I’ve ever read? Definitely no, not by a longshot. Did I enjoy reading it despite its numerous shortcomings and weaknesses? Kind of? Personally, I found it to be mildly interesting but mostly underwhelming and largely forgettable, questionable world-building aside. This novel and series aren’t going to win any awards for its narrative quality, but you can make a compelling point for it being an entertaining read for the right reader. While rushed and quite chaotic with its twists, the last 30% of the book has some unexpected developments that shows signs of the series moving in a more unique and distinctive direction. For those looking for a good dystopian series with psychic abilities and elements of soldier training, I would highly recommend Samantha Shannon’s The Bone Season instead as it’s a considerably better series, sans explicit adult content (for that, try Shannon’s other series The Priory of the Orange Tree). I’m not sure if I’ll be around to see where the sequel Broken Dove goes, but for lovers of contemporary romantasy books looking for a different flavor, you could do worse than Silver Elite .