Silver Elite
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • In the first book of a sizzling dystopian romance series, psychic gifts are a death sentence and there are rules to survival: Trust no one. Lie to everyone. And whatever you do, don’t fall for your greatest enemy.
“Dani Francis wrote the adult dystopian romance I’ve been wanting to read for the longest time. . . . I’m absolutely obsessed, and I need the next book in the series injected into my vein right now.”—Ali Hazelwood, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Bride
This stunning hardcover features a jacket with foil and a black-and-white interior map!
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.
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✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI
Readers say *Silver Elite* by Dani Francis delivers an overly trope-driven romantasy with a thin plot, unlikable characters, and troubling themes like...
Even though dystopian fantasy is not my favorite, I actually really enjoyed this book. It was an easy quick read that had a lot of twists and turns, some of which I clocked immediately, some of which genuinely surprised me. I found a LOT of parallels to Fourth Wing with the main characters, and the relationship between Wren and Jim reminded me of El & Hopper. Overall I highly recommend this book & I’m excited for book 2.
thenextgoodbook.com
What’s it about?
Wren Darlington has been in hiding since she can remember. When her uncle is taken prisoner, she impulsively goes after him. This marks the beginning of a journey she could not have foreseen.
What did it make me think about?
Who doesn’t love a good page-turner?
Should I read it?
Well, this book is getting a lot of hype for being a cross between The Hunger Games and Fourth Wing. Having read the book, I kind of get it. This is a dystopian romance, and the pages fly by. I enjoyed it. It was exactly as described. I enjoyed the first two-thirds of the book more than the last third, but that may have just been my preference. It got a little far-fetched towards the end. Of course, it is the first installment in a three-part trilogy, and I will be reading the next book when it comes out. It has my attention. For all you fans of Fourth Wing– this book is a simpler story, but I think you will still enjoy it.
Quote-
“Every single one of these people would happily see me dead if they knew what I was. They’ve been taught from birth that there’s something wrong with me. I’m an aberration. I’m defective. I don’t belong in society among the likes of them.”
What’s it about?
Wren Darlington has been in hiding since she can remember. When her uncle is taken prisoner, she impulsively goes after him. This marks the beginning of a journey she could not have foreseen.
What did it make me think about?
Who doesn’t love a good page-turner?
Should I read it?
Well, this book is getting a lot of hype for being a cross between The Hunger Games and Fourth Wing. Having read the book, I kind of get it. This is a dystopian romance, and the pages fly by. I enjoyed it. It was exactly as described. I enjoyed the first two-thirds of the book more than the last third, but that may have just been my preference. It got a little far-fetched towards the end. Of course, it is the first installment in a three-part trilogy, and I will be reading the next book when it comes out. It has my attention. For all you fans of Fourth Wing– this book is a simpler story, but I think you will still enjoy it.
Quote-
“Every single one of these people would happily see me dead if they knew what I was. They’ve been taught from birth that there’s something wrong with me. I’m an aberration. I’m defective. I don’t belong in society among the likes of them.”
Ooof, this book was just not for me. I love love love romantasy, and I love all the tropes we get in both romance and fantasy books. And I am perfectly fine with reading a book "just for fun" and I can overlook plot holes in a book I'm enjoying. But this was just too much of all that. It felt like a checklist of tropes with a thin plot that just barely held them together. And the characters weren't likeable. At all. But even with all that I might have given this a 2 or 3. But it was the lingering stench of facist fanfic that I couldn't get over. Like a bad smell that at first you think you might be imagining, but then you smell it again. And again, and then you're just obsessed with "where is that poopy smell coming from" and you forget everything else until you can track it down. That sums up my experience with this book. I didn't read any reviews or commentary until after I finished the book. But when I did, I was pleased to find out that I'm not the only one. Here's a few quotes from other reviewers that I 100% agree with.
----------------------------------------------
"This felt like someone grabbed all the book tropes from popular books and threw them into a blender and called it a day. The marketing already gave me the ick and cringe and honestly delayed me from picking this up. But like the fool I am, I thought I’d wait until the hype died down and give it a fair chance. HUGE mistake. I want my time back."
~sakurablossom95
"I'm not gonna waste too much time writing this review just to rehash what many non-White reviewers have already said about this book, many of which fully encapsulates the many problems with this book: the horrendous representation of oppressed peoples, the unsubtle racism in the world-building, the cringey internal dialogue of Wren, the "spicy" scenes riddled with assault, and so on and so forth."
~ gigireadswithkiki
"Do you love a story about an oppressed, enslaved minority abandons all her values to love the fascist hot dude? Yea, then this is perfect for you."
~ extralizard13
"I also want to point out here that the 'world building' is inane. 'The General' runs 'the Company' that calls the military 'the Command' and the whole justice system 'The Tribunal', and they overrule 'the Continent' that is broken up into 18 wards (formerly 26). The rebellion, called 'the Uprising' is run by 'Mods' who are people with powers most only have one but some have more than one if they are oh so special, wren has 4 for now. They are - healing, empathy, precognition, telepathy, projectors, mind readers, and inciters. 'The Primes' are just regular people with none of these abilities who want to kill all the Mods. The lack of thought put into the naming makes me want to yell. When I got to ''The Authority' is the head of the Uprising' I thought I was being punked and Ashton Kutcher would be on his way to me soon."
~kavicollins
"there are exactly zero conversations between Wren and Cross, or with the reader, about consent....
...Non-consent is rape. Just because Wren is attracted to Cross does not change this. Cross is realistically not your average ‘morally grey’ hates-everyone-but-her MMC. He is the oppressor having sexual relations with the oppressed who is unable to escape the situation. Wren claims that she’s using him to get information, but she clearly has no choice in the matter. It was disgusting to read about, not because of the idea of rape but because it was skimmed over and romanticised."
This book also felt like is being written for “both sides” as Wren often empathises with the literal enemy as if they aren’t killing, enslaving, and doing human experimentation on her people. There was just so much repetition of “oh but they’re brainwashed”, and at first it was okay - because it’s true, the soldiers were being brainwashed. But Wren continued to try defend them to herself and excuse their literal xenophobia towards her people. Whoever Dani Francis is, I am quite certain they’re privileged and white because there’s no way you’d find a POC trying to justify the oppressors.
~ https://seetaslibrary.substack.com/p/i-read-silver-elite-so-you-dont-have
"If they can tell who is using telepathy by the silver running in their veins.. wouldn’t they force people suspected of having powers to, idk, PUSH THEIR SLEEVES UP? I’m so confused why SLEEVES are the secret weapon for hiding their powers 😭 at the first few mentions of sleeves I thought it was a reference to some magic shroud that hadn’t been explained yet."
~jenniferPagebound
---------------------------------------------------------------
She literally has one black gay friend.
...who gets sent to a slave camp.
....by the dude she's fucking
"Silver Elite sees all that the dystopian genre has used to explore modern day issues, and asks the daring question of "what if I used this as a backdrop for my nazi fanfic?"
Silver Elite is for the girlies that missed the point of the Hunger Games; the girls that participated in the Gale vs Peeta debate not as an ideological war between the concepts of violence and revenge, versus the hope of peace and healing, but as the vapid discussion of dark haired broody man vs blonde golden retriever."
"It's for the women that think reading isn't political and books only exist to hand them their next copy-paste "book boyfriend". It's for the people that say "it's not that deep" in response to any single criticism of a book that they "turned their brain off" for. It's for people that only pick up romance and yet, also don't value romance as a genre that can say something interesting or thought provoking."
"It's bad because it's not even thinly veiled right wing propaganda. It's obvious, blatant right wing propaganda. If this book were a person, it's that white "liberal" girl who dates nazis."
"In other words," I finish, my voice cold, "don't touch me again without my permission."
Cross's gaze never leaves my face. "Or what?"
I frown at him.
"What are you going to do, Darlington? Hit me? Go ahead. Do it."
EXCUSE ME????? How tf is the love interest in your "romance" book going to reply to a strong boundary of "don't touch me again" with "Or what?" Or WHAT????
And after this scene, do you know what Cross continues to do?
He keeps touching Wren without her permission.
There is like seven different scenes of Cross grabbing Wren from behind without consent, often times in dark hallways, and then pinning her against a door or wall. Often times he's also drunk. Not to mention, he is in a postion of immense power over her. He has the power to, at any moment, cut her from the military and ship her off to a labor camp.
Nearly all of their interactions consist of Wren telling Cross to not touch her, or that she isn't interested in him. The reader knows that she finds him really hot, but Cross literally cannot read her mind. He hears her say all of these things and continually sexualizes her, says sexual things to her, touches her sexually, calls her a whore, and talks about how hard he gets thinking about her.
It's disgusting. It's not hot.
" Cross asks Wren if she has ever seen him kill a Mod.
Wren then, in her internal narration, tells the reader that, no, she hasn't ever seen him kill a Mod, in fact, instead he sends them to the labor camps, and that's "a thousand times better than burying their corpses"!!!"
"The book constantly pulls the "both sides are bad" card, and at times even seems to suggest that the Elites are right for being afraid of the Mods and putting them into labor camps. If this is not obvious right wing propaganda to you, especially in our current climate, I'm concerned for you."
"Wren refers to the SLAVE LABOR CAMPS as a GILDED CAGE.
WREN SENT HER BEST FRIEND, A DARK SKINNED WOMAN, TO A SLAVE LABOR CAMP, AND THEN CALLED THE SLAVE LABOR CAMP A GILDED CAGE."
"there are obviously a lot of things that i did not like about this book but the thing that just made me feel really disgusted was how the character tana was treated. to have your character who is described to have “dark skin” be raped and then sent to a labor camp with her father, while having us believe that this is the best outcome the mc can do for her best friend… is beyond words disgusting. "
"this book also feels like is is being written for “both sides” like one side isn’t killing, enslaving, and doing human experimentation on the other. in the year 2025? yuck. also, weird discussion around mental health in this? in my opinion, the vilification of mental health in this? and actually using schizophrenia as cover up word? i don’t know who dani francis is, but apparently they weren’t given sensitivity readers."
"Using Spanish to name an area of the world and then describing it as the place where hard drugs are sold and smuggled into the country is a weird move. It is a HUGE red flag for me considering that narrative is so casually thrown around in the US to characterize Spanish speaking countries close to our borders. It made me question everything about the intentions of this book and the author. I'm not here to judge others for their reading interests, but I am here to point out the issues"
----------------------------------------------
"This felt like someone grabbed all the book tropes from popular books and threw them into a blender and called it a day. The marketing already gave me the ick and cringe and honestly delayed me from picking this up. But like the fool I am, I thought I’d wait until the hype died down and give it a fair chance. HUGE mistake. I want my time back."
~sakurablossom95
"I'm not gonna waste too much time writing this review just to rehash what many non-White reviewers have already said about this book, many of which fully encapsulates the many problems with this book: the horrendous representation of oppressed peoples, the unsubtle racism in the world-building, the cringey internal dialogue of Wren, the "spicy" scenes riddled with assault, and so on and so forth."
~ gigireadswithkiki
"Do you love a story about an oppressed, enslaved minority abandons all her values to love the fascist hot dude? Yea, then this is perfect for you."
~ extralizard13
"I also want to point out here that the 'world building' is inane. 'The General' runs 'the Company' that calls the military 'the Command' and the whole justice system 'The Tribunal', and they overrule 'the Continent' that is broken up into 18 wards (formerly 26). The rebellion, called 'the Uprising' is run by 'Mods' who are people with powers most only have one but some have more than one if they are oh so special, wren has 4 for now. They are - healing, empathy, precognition, telepathy, projectors, mind readers, and inciters. 'The Primes' are just regular people with none of these abilities who want to kill all the Mods. The lack of thought put into the naming makes me want to yell. When I got to ''The Authority' is the head of the Uprising' I thought I was being punked and Ashton Kutcher would be on his way to me soon."
~kavicollins
"there are exactly zero conversations between Wren and Cross, or with the reader, about consent....
...Non-consent is rape. Just because Wren is attracted to Cross does not change this. Cross is realistically not your average ‘morally grey’ hates-everyone-but-her MMC. He is the oppressor having sexual relations with the oppressed who is unable to escape the situation. Wren claims that she’s using him to get information, but she clearly has no choice in the matter. It was disgusting to read about, not because of the idea of rape but because it was skimmed over and romanticised."
This book also felt like is being written for “both sides” as Wren often empathises with the literal enemy as if they aren’t killing, enslaving, and doing human experimentation on her people. There was just so much repetition of “oh but they’re brainwashed”, and at first it was okay - because it’s true, the soldiers were being brainwashed. But Wren continued to try defend them to herself and excuse their literal xenophobia towards her people. Whoever Dani Francis is, I am quite certain they’re privileged and white because there’s no way you’d find a POC trying to justify the oppressors.
~ https://seetaslibrary.substack.com/p/i-read-silver-elite-so-you-dont-have
"If they can tell who is using telepathy by the silver running in their veins.. wouldn’t they force people suspected of having powers to, idk, PUSH THEIR SLEEVES UP? I’m so confused why SLEEVES are the secret weapon for hiding their powers 😭 at the first few mentions of sleeves I thought it was a reference to some magic shroud that hadn’t been explained yet."
~jenniferPagebound
---------------------------------------------------------------
She literally has one black gay friend.
...who gets sent to a slave camp.
....by the dude she's fucking
"Silver Elite sees all that the dystopian genre has used to explore modern day issues, and asks the daring question of "what if I used this as a backdrop for my nazi fanfic?"
Silver Elite is for the girlies that missed the point of the Hunger Games; the girls that participated in the Gale vs Peeta debate not as an ideological war between the concepts of violence and revenge, versus the hope of peace and healing, but as the vapid discussion of dark haired broody man vs blonde golden retriever."
"It's for the women that think reading isn't political and books only exist to hand them their next copy-paste "book boyfriend". It's for the people that say "it's not that deep" in response to any single criticism of a book that they "turned their brain off" for. It's for people that only pick up romance and yet, also don't value romance as a genre that can say something interesting or thought provoking."
"It's bad because it's not even thinly veiled right wing propaganda. It's obvious, blatant right wing propaganda. If this book were a person, it's that white "liberal" girl who dates nazis."
"In other words," I finish, my voice cold, "don't touch me again without my permission."
Cross's gaze never leaves my face. "Or what?"
I frown at him.
"What are you going to do, Darlington? Hit me? Go ahead. Do it."
EXCUSE ME????? How tf is the love interest in your "romance" book going to reply to a strong boundary of "don't touch me again" with "Or what?" Or WHAT????
And after this scene, do you know what Cross continues to do?
He keeps touching Wren without her permission.
There is like seven different scenes of Cross grabbing Wren from behind without consent, often times in dark hallways, and then pinning her against a door or wall. Often times he's also drunk. Not to mention, he is in a postion of immense power over her. He has the power to, at any moment, cut her from the military and ship her off to a labor camp.
Nearly all of their interactions consist of Wren telling Cross to not touch her, or that she isn't interested in him. The reader knows that she finds him really hot, but Cross literally cannot read her mind. He hears her say all of these things and continually sexualizes her, says sexual things to her, touches her sexually, calls her a whore, and talks about how hard he gets thinking about her.
It's disgusting. It's not hot.
" Cross asks Wren if she has ever seen him kill a Mod.
Wren then, in her internal narration, tells the reader that, no, she hasn't ever seen him kill a Mod, in fact, instead he sends them to the labor camps, and that's "a thousand times better than burying their corpses"!!!"
"The book constantly pulls the "both sides are bad" card, and at times even seems to suggest that the Elites are right for being afraid of the Mods and putting them into labor camps. If this is not obvious right wing propaganda to you, especially in our current climate, I'm concerned for you."
"Wren refers to the SLAVE LABOR CAMPS as a GILDED CAGE.
WREN SENT HER BEST FRIEND, A DARK SKINNED WOMAN, TO A SLAVE LABOR CAMP, AND THEN CALLED THE SLAVE LABOR CAMP A GILDED CAGE."
"there are obviously a lot of things that i did not like about this book but the thing that just made me feel really disgusted was how the character tana was treated. to have your character who is described to have “dark skin” be raped and then sent to a labor camp with her father, while having us believe that this is the best outcome the mc can do for her best friend… is beyond words disgusting. "
"this book also feels like is is being written for “both sides” like one side isn’t killing, enslaving, and doing human experimentation on the other. in the year 2025? yuck. also, weird discussion around mental health in this? in my opinion, the vilification of mental health in this? and actually using schizophrenia as cover up word? i don’t know who dani francis is, but apparently they weren’t given sensitivity readers."
"Using Spanish to name an area of the world and then describing it as the place where hard drugs are sold and smuggled into the country is a weird move. It is a HUGE red flag for me considering that narrative is so casually thrown around in the US to characterize Spanish speaking countries close to our borders. It made me question everything about the intentions of this book and the author. I'm not here to judge others for their reading interests, but I am here to point out the issues"
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