The sequel to the amazing 'The Red Necklace' was pretty good but not as good as the original. I didn't find this book slow at all, it was fast pace and like the first one the writing was brilliant and vivid and will draw you in with every word you read. What made it not so good as the original was I felt some characters who are newly introduced into the series really didn't have time to develop through the whole book so I was disappointed with that. I didn't enjoy the ending and thought it could of ended a bit differently and had more action in it. My favorite character, Sido, was not really in the book until the ending of it which was a bit disappoint. The nice thing about Sido and Yann is they remind me of Romeo and Juliet, but I won't tell you if they have a tragic ending or a a happily ever after ending.
The last thing that bothered me is some parts were down right confusing. This isn't a big thing because the parts that were confusing you'd usually figure out later on your own or you just keep reading. I also was kind of disappointed with myself because I don't know much about the French Revolution so a lot of information about the French Revolution in here, other then the prisions, guillotine, and that a lot of rich people were killed, made little sense to me. But because I don't know about the French Revolution, this book makes me want to learn about this.
I must say, if you've read The Red Necklace then you don't want to miss this amazing sequel. I knew the instances I found out that their was a sequel I had to read it and I wasn't disappoint (except for the ending). I urge readers who haven't read this series by Sally Gardner to read the 'The Red Necklace' or for those who have read it to read The Silver Blade. ( )

Yann and his compatriots return to using their talents to rescue French aristocrats from the hands of the Revolutionary Committee, and Yann has incredible talents indeed. Sido is with Laxtons in London and safe from the bloodshed and Count Kalliovski is dead at the hands of a Parisian mob.
This is the time when France is in the deepest days of the reign of the guillotine and it is a place where the innocent and guilty are killed daily to the delight of a voracious rabble. Something evil is stalking the streets and Yann feels its presence. This turns out to be Count Kalliovski. He is amazingly not dead but brought back to life after a pact with the devil. He is continuing his macabre work deep in the catacombs under Paris and he still has his passion for Sidonie and has set his spies searching for her. His hatred for Yann has also increased and he is plotting Yann's death.
Against this terrible background, and although apart, Yann and Sidonie profess their love for each other and it is their commitment to the decency and kindness that helps them through their darkest hours to the glorious defeat of the evil that exists in the form of Kalliovski. ( )

The Silver Blade is the sequel (and I think there may only be two books in the series because the story wraps up pretty neatly here) to Sally Gardner's The Red Necklace. It is historical fantasy set during the French Revolution. It centers mainly around a Yann, a gypsy with the power to move objects and read people's minds and his lady love Sido.

The plot in this book was darker and more supernatural than its predecessor. The villain, Count Kalliovsky, is truly evil and just... disturbing. In The Red Necklace, I thought he was more interesting as a character, but in this one, there was really nothing even like that to redeem him. You always knew what he would do because he would do the cruelest thing possible. New characters, on the villain side, were also introduced in this book, but they also had no depth. They were just evil, pure and simple.

And then, on the glorious side of light and goodness, Yann and Sido. I really liked Yann in The Red Necklace. He was a boy who had his head on straight and knew what he was about. He still is, in this book, except that he takes these really annoying turns of being a lovestruck mooncalf, bemoaning the loss of his soul mate Sido, who is off in London. And Sido is even worse than he is because she doesn't even really do anything in the book at all, except be in love with Yann. If she had a more active role, then it may have been easier to take. But she spends very little time doing anything except writing letters to her boyfriend. It is not often that a book can make me physically roll my eyes, but this book managed. This is probably why love letters are best kept private; they have a very different effect on anyone who is not the intended audience. Yann and Sido literally go through the story making several people in the book fall in love with them and managing to remain steadfast and pure to their True Loves. Sigh. It's a well-worn path of a story, really. And while I like the dashing action and the French Revolution setting, this book just didn't catch me the way its predecessor did.

Overall, though, I'd recommend the series. The good parts outweigh the bad, and maybe other people won't be quite so annoyed by the moping as I as. ( )