Hardcore epic fantasy. I will say, if you can't handle the darkness of the human soul, this may not be the story for you. As you may have noted, it took me a long time to work my way through this book. I started it a while back and set it aside because I didn't have the stamina for it then. I barely had the stamina for it now. It's a powerfully told tale of antiheroes, warfare, politics, fanaticism, and more. It's taken me a while to parse through it all.

Language-wise, it's a fairly lyrical book, even when telling a tale that veers into the twisted and painful parts of being human. I can handle a lot without getting uncomfortable, but there were scenes that managed to punch through even my jaded surface -- Portoles on the "hot seat" confessional comes to mind. Even scenes like that were told in well-crafted prose.

Almost all of the characters are deeply flawed and unpleasant, yet somehow still likable.

Thank you for the arc, unfortunately I did not finish it, I just wasn't the right audience for this book.

Dark, dreary, about 150 pages too long. Have to admit Zosia is a fantastic character but the plot tries to do too much and adequately shows almost none of it. Also could stand a better editor.

I meant to read and review this and life happened. Though it looks really interesting, I've since read some other work by this author, including some stories set in this world. I really didn't find them all that appealing, so lost fire for reading a longer work.

A good story with grand ideas and interesting world building. Yet there were stretches where I just wasn’t invested in the story and it took me a while to figure out why; the secondary characters are almost all completely identical with the same snarky witty sense of humor. Most of the primary characters spend their time being frustrated or trying to be more witty than the other characters which just gets a bit tiresome after a while. That said the story is interesting and I want to continue reading so that negative isn’t too bad. Overall a good GrimDark story that will appeal to readers of Fantasy.

A Crown for Cold Silver is epic fantasy on a grand scale. And in part that is the problem. The reader is tossed into the middle of a tale and better get swimming mighty fast before he/she is swamped by the multiple characters who each have their own accretion to add to the main story. And if you miss a detail it will come back to blindside you later when that minor event proves to be the leverage that launched the whole edifice. Mind you, Alex Marshall had created a world worth exploring, but be sure to leave yourself enough time to do the tale justice. And, thankfully, there is a sequel out so you do not have to squirm too long before getting another fix