Hellishly Good Fantasy Book – Salt and Silver

Anne Katherine has written a fun fantasy book about “hell” in her new book Salt and Silver. You wouldn’t think you could have the words “fun” and “hell” in the same sentence, but this author has achieved it with her paranormal tale of supernatural beings and human heroes who protect the earth in both the above-world and the underworld.

In the story, there are many hells and each one has a special door to enter through and for each door there are nine more doors and so forth and so on. See the opportunity for endless story lines? What is even more unique about this is that a door to hell can open anywhere in our human world and when it does, a special hunter will show up – just in time – to keep any nasty “hellish” things from coming through that door.

To start out, you meet Allie, a former rich girl, whose mother abandoned her and left her to work in a diner to make ends meet. The only things she has left from her previous life of wealth are her two best friends, Amanda and Stan.

Six years ago, Allie inadvertently opened a door to hell in the basement of the diner and with that door came a really cute hunter named Ryan who would just as soon shoot her as look at her. However Allie has a major crush on Ryan and has spent the last six years trying to get him to like her (romantically, of course). However, since Ryan’s main interest is in teaching Allie the tricks of the hunter trade, he resists her efforts to turn their relationship into something more personal.

To summarize: Allie can kill a vampire, a hound from hell, a wyvern or just about any supernatural creature that can come through the hell door – but she doesn’t have a boyfriend.

As Allie continues working with Ryan and other hunters around the world, she learns that she has a very special relationship with the door in the diner basement – she can talk to it and it grants her wishes.

Suddenly doors are not just portals into hell; they’re entities with actual personalities. Allie is just beginning to enjoy learning more about her door when – poof – it suddenly disappears! From the hunter’s perspective, this is not a good thing – a hell door has never disappeared before. Since none of the hunters know how to handle this new situation and the door is the responsibility of Ryan and Allie, it’s up to them to enter hell and find out what has thrown off the balance between earth and hell before everyone and everything on earth is destroyed.

I admit when I first started reading this fantasy book, I was intrigued with the premise but I did not like the lead character Allie very much. That totally changed as I got further into the story and realized how much personal growth she was gaining from her experiences with the hunters and the doors. We see her grow from a spoiled rich girl into someone who appreciates the little things and who has learned to not take life for granted. A lesson many of us could learn . . . ?

I also liked her wit and the way she handled challenging situations. It was a good read, it’s a very original storyline, and I was quite glad to find it – right now there are so many authors trying to fit into the urban fantasy craze that it was great to find someone who knows how to write a truly good paranormal romance!

Salt and Silver was a joy to read. Check it out at places like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Can’t wait for the next book in the series!