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I received a netgalley arc of the first book in advance of its publication, and was lucky enough to receive an arc of this one as well! I felt this book followed the first pretty well. I enjoyed the first book while I didn't love it, but this one was better!
This picked up right where it left off, which was a relief because any sort of skip to normalizing where they ended up in the last book would've been awful. It's action right from the start, and it only leads to more questions. The pacing is done very well, though Tori's parts were a little less interesting to me. There's some romance but it doesn't overtake the plot which I was glad about (it's a weak plot if that happens). The magic system is pretty great and the side characters are interesting and helpful to the plot.

The two storylines of Isoka on the ship and her sister Tori on the mainland really tied together nicely, deepening the world and making the story more dynamic. There was a lot revealed about the city on the mainland and the underlying problems that weren't able to be explored in the first book due to it not being important to the main plot at the time.

I loved seeing the interesting dynamics between the characters on the ship outside of Isoka. It made it feel more organic. Isoka was also more emotional in this book, which I really liked! However, I felt Tori's arc and character development was rushed. Another issue I had was I didn't like that the author wrote 13 year old Tori (who turns 14 at some point in the book) mentioning masturbation and having a steamy kiss with a 16/17 year old. As someone in their early 20's, it felt weird for an adult to write a preteen/young teen being/attempting to be sexually active.

I was so excited for Ship of Smoke and Steel last year but was disappointed when actually reading it. Don’t get me wrong, there were some great elements. The ghost ship, a bisexual mc, ff and mm relationships throughout the book. But the story as a whole could not quite sell me over.

I am pleased to say that I enjoyed City of Stone and Silence a lot more. In this instance we get a dual perspective. Isoka of course, on the ship, and her sister Tori, in the city. Isoka is trying to find a way to get the ship turned which seems to become even more impossible when it docks somewhere on its own. Tori isn’t quite as sheltered as her sister believes and goes into the other wards to help in a hospital where she can. Unfortunately a big uprising is triggered, and she is right there, at the front.

These two story lines moving next to each other gave the book a bigger dynamic and deepened out the world considerably. We get explanations about the ship and what was its purpose. We see much more of the city and the underlying problems. There are many underlying themes here, but especially in Tori’s story where the unequalness of their world is zoomed in on with the wards.

I found hearing where the ship came from interesting and we got more interesting dynamics across the board between Isoka and the other characters in her story line. With just those that followed her (with the exception of her lover and friend) it was getting a little flat. But the addition of other characters created dynamics and reasons for them to question things.

Tori was a joy to follow. She is a little more subdued than Isoka but knows exactly what she wants. The one thing I found awkward is that Tori is 13 for most of the book, she turns 14 at some point, and this is written by a man who lets her mention masturbation (not that this is something that should not be mentioned) and lets her have a somewhat steamy kiss with a 16 year old. Don’t get me wrong, personality wise the couple works. But there is a difference developmentally wise between a 13-14 year old and a 16-17 year old. Adding on that it was written by a man made me feel very awkward. It wasn’t written badly but as a woman and a mom this didn’t quite feel right. Obviously this is a very personal thing however and other might not feel similar to me.

The book as a whole though felt like a step up from the first book and I can’t wait for the reunion between the sisters.

After blowing through the first book in this trilogy in about two days, I immediately nabbed a copy from NetGalley. What a joy to find a new series that you absolutely love and have the second book come out the very month you finish the first! While I think the first book stills ranks ahead of this, I was quite pleased with the direction the series seems to be headed in and the surprises that were in store here!

It seems that the ghost ship, Soliton, has finally reached its port. But answers here are as illusive as they were on the mysterious ship. In a land riddled with the walking dead, Isoka must untangle the complicated history of the ship and its makers if she has any hope of returning to her beloved sister, Tori. Back in her home city, Tori has been getting out and about much more than Isoka knew or would have wanted. She spends much of this time volunteering at a hospital for the poor, but her own street instincts have not been lost or forgotten either. With her eyes constantly on an exit strategy, Tori has been carefully cultivating her own connections. But when the city begins to teeter on the bring of revolt, Tori finds herself thrust into the spotlight in a way that may expose secrets that she’s kept even from her own sister.

The introduction of Tori was quite the shift for this book, with the chapters now alternating between the two sisters and their experiences. I enjoyed the addition of this new character quite a lot, though I will also admit that Isoka was still by far my favorite character and I found her story here the more intriguing of the two. But it’s a brave choice to make, and I think it was pulled off well. Tori’s story lays a lot of groundwork for the final confrontation in the third book and brings some complicated themes into a story that, before, was pretty solidly a fun adventure fantasy.

Isoka is still as brilliant as ever. Brave, straight-forward, but with a hard shell that she is only beginning to shed. In the first book we saw her confront her own ability to care for others, both in the immediate and personal, as well as in the whole, as she leads the other Soliton residents to the last remaining safe space on the ship. In this book, she confronts the challenge of lasting leadership when the goal is not so obvious or so black and white in what needs to be done to achieve it. More than anything, she learns what it means to trust others to help her. She’s just the sort of prickly, gruff, super competent hero I like.

The mystery of the port of Soliton is also incredibly intriguing. In the first book, we really only scraped the surface of the ghost ship, knowing just enough to know that we didn’t know anything. This book takes that one ship and now explodes it out to an entire lost city with mysteries that reach back thousands of years. There are answers here to more than just the strange ship and its solitary mission to collected young people with access to magical Wells. There were a lot a lot of legitimately creepy elements. The crabs from the first book read like the type of exciting monsters that one finds in Japanese monster flicks. But here an element of horror is painted over top it all. And I’ll just say this…dinosaurs. Take from that what you will.

As I said above, while I still enjoyed the adventure of Isoka’s story and her own character arc best, Tori was overall an excellent addition. It becomes clear early on that Tori’s own experiences of life on the street were not so effectively wiped away as Isoka had hoped. But, being a very different girl than Isoka with very different gifts, Tori has taken her own route in building up a life for herself, one that is still always prepared for the worst. Through her story, we get a much deeper look into the geo-political state of the Empire Isoka left behind. And the story of growing unrest, a tipping point, and the uprising of the common people against an Empire that has pushed too far is very compelling.

Tori’s own role in this revolution was a very interesting contrast to Isoka. Both have been thrust into leadership roles that they feel ill equipped to manage. Both have incredible power that others can both admire and fear (though Tori’s is kept under wraps from those around her for much of the book). The classic “with great power come great responsibility” motif is explored thoroughly from both angles. But the book takes an interesting approach to the idea. The power itself isn’t in question, it’s more what does responsibility actually look like when one has power? The story explores how power can bring out both the best and worst of people. And that similar experiences of having power, and more importantly here, responsibility thrust upon a person can have very different outcomes, depending on the person. Power alone does not good or evil make.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this sequel. Tori was a fantastic addition, adding new themes into the story as well as creating more shades of grey to the ones already being covered. The world-building and magical history seemed to multiply in this book, and what had been contained to a strange ship, expands out to provide insights into the entire world and magical system itself. And, of course, I love Isoka. I have no filter for this type of powerful, yet emotionally walled off, heroines it seems. If you enjoyed the first book, be ready to kick into the next gear!

Rating 8: A fantastic second outing that highlights the author’s meticulous story-telling techniques, leaving so many goodies and reveals for the second book that one can only wonder at what will come in the third!

The magic system in this series is A+! Let me start there. I LOVE the wells of sorcery and how people have different abilities based in which well they draw from / belong to. The world-building also stepped up in this sequel, letting us both see and understand more of what the world actually looks like. This was much appreciated!

But, and there is always a but, it draaaaagged out some parts. I kept being thrown out of the story by endless goddamn descriptions. It was like the author decided we needed to know what every house looks like. And I was there for the action and the fast pace… So that made it a bad match for me. In saying that I also want to add that I think this might have been taken as a positive feature, if I had been in a different headspace whilst reading this book. Sadly, I was not.

There were some things I really loved and some things I strongly disliked with this book. Which made it soo hard to rate. But I feel like this is a 3 star read for me. Which is sad, because I loved the first book so much. My high expectations might also have ruined the experience a bit for me, I kept noticing things that I found lacking instead of enjoying all the awesome parts that are actually there.

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List of things I loved:
– Magic system
– World building
– The new mc (there are two main characters in this book, contrary to one in the first)
– The action is stellar

List of things I didn’t love:
– The new mc is 14 but behaves like an adult would (this kept throwing me off because hello this is not a 20-year old??) and has a romance (I found this yucky)
– Descriptions. So. Many. Descriptions.
– Many foreign words (the nine wells, their magic systems, the names of people, it all mushed together several times)
– The new mc also seemed to make choices and act based on absolutely NOTHING. She simply seemed to lack motivation and reasoning for her choices. (I’m hoping this gets resolved or addressed in book 3)

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All in all, what made me struggle with this book was that I kept being thrown out of the world by confusion or annoyance on my side, due to the reasons above. I still highly recommend you give this series a go! I thoroughly loved the first book, and this was good too. I’m excited to see how it all ends. I have a feeling I will love the third book even more than this!!

The Wells of Sorcery is the trilogy everybody should be talking about. But the trouble with things published in January is that they’re good for buying with Christmas gift cards, but bad for making it on to best-of lists. Which is a shame, since Ship of Smoke and Steel, the first installment, was a rollicking good time. And now City of Stone and Silence, the second volume, is every bit as thrilling, smart, and badass as the first.

Isoka has made it through the journey aboard the Soliton, but now there comes the destination: an island as much hell as paradise, with days of sunshine and fertile fields, but nights filled with undead terrors and bitter feuds. Negotiating the rival clans and power-mad ruler is made all the more difficult by Isoka's time limits. If she doesn't get back to Kahnzoka within one year, her sister's life is forfeit. She, her beloved Meroe, and her crew burn through plans and battles like mad in order to meet what feels like an impossible deadline.

But Tori, Isoka's younger sister, might already be in trouble with the empire. Isoka thinks Tori is safe inside a upper-class estate, with tutors and maids and guards keeping her properly cosseted. But Tori is haunted by her past on the street and the sudden wealth she didn’t earn. Many nights she makes her way from her soft, protected life in the upper city and goes to work at a hospital in the lower city. She launders bedding, binds wounds, and soothes pains. And she also assists in an underground network that keeps magebloods away from the imperial draft. Magebloods like her. Because Tori is an adept just like Isoka, only her power is not in combat, but over people’s minds.

Both stories move at a very good clip, especially considering the narrative is now split between Tori and Isoka. I loved Isoka's voice and daring from the first book, and thought I might resent Tori from taking time away from her. Tori, though, is her own kind of awesome. Though she's shyer and more polite than her sister, she's not quite the fragile bloom that Isoka thinks she is (and wants her to be, since Isoka needs one innocent thing to keep her motivated in her corrupt world). Tori is intimately familiar with the emotional burden of responsibility that Isoka is only just learning. But Isoka is far more comfortable with her powers and the compromises leaderships requires than Tori. There's a nice balance there, and nothing so crude as having them be "the sweet sister" and "the practical sister." They're each complex enough to change over the course of the book, and distinct enough for those changes to seem consistently interesting and fresh. Also, they both fight mega-dramatic battles in very different and interesting ways. Let’s not forget that part.

This book and this series is just so much fun. The action never stops, the characterization is clear and sharp, and the action is a joy to behold. I mean, at one point, people fight undead dinosaurs with what are essentially lightsabers. There's just no getting around how crazy-cool that is.

This isn't to ignore the serious themes; actually, the overarching idea that individuals can still make a difference added to my enjoyment. Wexler has a lot to say about freedom in times of tyranny, about the ways to use privilege (or not to use it), and about the toll of leadership. This book sometimes felt like zucchini bread: delicious enough to devour, and sneakily healthy besides.

I absolutely loved this book! I really enjoyed the first in the series, and I was so excited to start reading the sequel. The characters are complex, the plot is intricate, and I loved reentering this world.

What I liked most about this sequel was that it expanded greatly upon the world introduced in the first book, including lands beyond Kahnzoka as well as the different Wells people can have abilities from. Isoka and Tori both have access to different Wells, as do all of the characters from Soliton.

Unlike the first book, which consisted of Isoka as the only POV character, City of Stone and Silence alternated between Isoka's POV and her sister Tori's. I really liked learning more about Tori, especially since she and Isoka had minimal interaction in the first book, although the overarching plot of the series involves Isoka being blackmailed regarding her sister's life. Tori ended up being just as exciting to read about as Isoka is, even though the sisters are very different people. First of all, Tori turns fourteen at the beginning of the book, so she's understandable less mature and experienced than Isoka. She's also spent the past several years living in luxury because of Isoka's sacrifices, so she's less hardened and ruthless than Isoka. However, the sisters definitely share the same determination, and Tori ends up being a badass in her own way.

Isoka was just as sarcastic, crass, and violent as ever, and I loved re-experiencing her POV in this book. While both Tori and Isoka's love interest Meroe are more traditionally feminine, Isoka is not, which I really liked. I also loved her relationship with Meroe. I think they balance each other very well according to their respective strengths, and they clearly love each other very much. It was also nice that their relationship was more or less stable throughout the book, rather than fracturing under stress. Meroe herself is also much more complex than a lot of love interests in YA fantasy, and I wouldn't mind reading her POV as well in the next book.

All in all, I really enjoyed my time reading City of Stone and Silence and would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Throne of Glass, Game of Thrones, or Furyborn.