I'm a fan of the Chronicles of Elantra series and there were some definite similarities between that series and Silence (The Queen of the Dead). The way it was written is very Michelle Sagara with flowery prose and thoughtful insights. The main character, Emma, was also similar to Private Kaylin Neya, the main character from Chronicles of Elantra. Both are very thoughtful while having unique abilities that separate them from even the people who have their own abilities. There were also interesting and in some cases, mysterious secondary characters. 
 However, there were things I was disappointed about with Silence (The Queen of the Dead). The first, as well as the greatest disappointment was the opinion that Michelle Sagara's written voice doesn't suit the YA genre as well as it does adult. Her written voice sounds really mature, too mature for someone still in high school. It's not that someone in high school can't be mature enough to be as thoughtful and insightful as Emma was, rather it was an intangible feeling, possibly created by all the characters easy acceptance of what was happening. A maturity they probably shouldn't have had. There was possibly other things the contributed to this idea but I can't put my finger on it. 
 Second, the world building needed more work. This is surprising to me since the world building in the Chronicles of Elantra series was done really well. It was almost like Michelle Sagara created a mix of a new series combined with jumping straight into the story somewhere after the beginning. It felt like I was missing something about what was going on and not just because Michelle Sagara likes to introduce information slowly to create mystery. I wanted to know more about basic things like how her boyfriend died and her experiences with him and more about why being a necromancer is so bad. In addition, Michelle Sagara's flowery prose didn't work for her as well as usual, since it was harder to understand then it should be because she hadn't set up the background knowledge.