Salt and Silver

It was the innocence of idle affluent youth, but Allie and her friends conjured up an entrance to and from hell in the basement of Sally's Diner in Brooklyn. Feeling responsible but unsure how to close the portal permanently, Allie works at the diner feeding customers and insuring they are not on the menu of some beast as a snack. Over the past six years since her folly, Allie has fought demons and argued with hunters. The one that frightens her the most is Ryan who blithely moved into the basement. Her door to hell vanishes, and other portals open and close throughout the city. Ryan and Allie finally stop bickering to team up to take the war into hell before hell takes it to earth. Though urban romantic fantasy has flooded the market especially starring women turning from social deb to superheroine, fans will enjoy the latest entrant and her adventures in Brooklyn as she may not prove a tree grows in the largest borough, but demons do. Allie's war with Ryan the hunter provides humorous asides to the fight they make to keep paranormal evil off the streets of the city. The couple turns Anna Katherine's super entry into the subgenre into a fun thriller. Harriet Klausner

It's been sooo long since I've read a truly great book. Seriously. It's as if most of what I've been reading is like eating cotton candy when you're hungry. Sure, it satisfies your sweet tooth and your hunger, but after a few minutes and a swig of Coke, the sugary sweet rush has disappeared. And you're STILL hungry. Reading "Salt and Silver" by Anna Katherine was much more like eating your mom's good cooking...rich, comfortable, and satisfying. "Salt and Silver" introduces us to Allie, a Brooklyn diner owner who, in her "past life" as a teenager, was a frivolous rich mallrat until her mother ran off with the tennis instructor...and all the family's fortune. Anyway, on a drunken binge night six years ago, Allie and her two best friends (Stan, an ex-skateboard geek who is now a gay club kid...and Amanda, still a frivolous mallrat and well on her way to a good case of cirrhosis) decided to dabble a bit in magic. Instead of granting her wish, the magic ended up opening a door to hell. Several moments after this new door popped into existence, a gorgeous leather-clad demon hunter called Ryan busts in to save the day - and chastise the unknowingly irresponsible Allie and friends. Flash forward six years...Ryan has been staying at the diner in the basement near the door to prevent anything from escaping from hell. Come to find out, there are doorways to hell everywhere (including one underneath a local mall's "Bath and Body Works", which I found funny). His relationship with Allie has been mainly a complex one - him training her to defend herself in case of demon attacks mixed in with mutual unrequited longing for each other. One day, the diner's door to hell literally disappears. Gone. And no one knows why...all that they know is that it's never occured before AND that it's bad. I really don't want to give any more away than this. "Salt and Silver" was, honestly, an excellent read. Funny, sweet, sad, and action-packed, you can't go wrong. In a genre (paranormal romance) that's lately been deluged with mediocrity (IMO, it's mostly due to NON-FANTASY and NON-PARANORMAL authors jumping on the bandwagon of the fastest growing romance genre & not being knowledgeable of the topic enough to handle the task), it's wonderful to (finally) find a truly great read. Cheers!

This book was everything I was hoping it would be - hilarious, engaging, and a universe that I could SEE. What surprised me (and shouldn't have) is that there are parts that are deeply touching, even sad. The best books manage to balance all of those things, just as Salt and Silver does. The protagonist is glib, but I never read her as juvenile or ADD - rather, she read like someone who uses sarcasm as a shell. Excellent work and fully enjoyable to read. I look forward to more from this author.

You have to get used to the way this writer writes. But once in the rhythm of things, her ADD (attention deficit disorder) style is totally creative and fun. The story line and characters are great. I couldn't put it down and finished it in 1 day. I hope she decides to develop these characters into a series.

Allie had money and prestige at one time, but a family bankruptcy forced her to take a job & board above a diner in downtown NY. As Allie herself says in the first, smashing two sentences of the book - "This is not a long or complicated story. There's a Door to Hell in the basement of my diner, right next to where we stack the boxes for food deliveries." In fact there are Doors to Hell all over New York, and Allie's love interest, Ryan, is one of a group of hunters who guards them, and kills what comes out of them. Ryan is like all the other hunters. He is unusually young and fit, surly, arrogant, with a lot of magnetism - oh, yes, and a very short life expectancy. After all, how long would you last guarding a Door from Hell? Anyway, the first section of the book deals with Allie, Ryan, the Doors, Allie's best friends, Stan & Amanda, and some of Ryan's hunter comrades. The second half of the book is a journey through several of the hells, looking for an answer to why the Doors are starting to move. I completely enjoyed this book. It grabbed my interest from the first sentences and held me captive the entire way. At first, I felt that Allie's "voice" was too young teen and too immature for the story and I wondered if I was inadvertently reading a Young Adult novel. Not so. As the book grows, so does Allie - her "voice", her thoughts, her motivations. By the middle of the book, you will love her and completely understand her fascination for Ryan. The trip through the various Hells is amazing. Some of the hells are fascinating, some horrifying, some repulsive, but always great reading. I highly recommend this book, and this author is now on my "must buy" list.