The Smoke Thieves by Sally Green.
I picked up this read because I've been a long time fan of Sally Green's Half Bad trilogy, a very raw and gritty UK based telling of magic and witches. As mentioned in my last post, I've been in a massive reading slump recently so this book actually took me a while to get through. I've been picking up on my reading and now I'm behind on my reviews. Pot luck, isn't it? My next few reviews might range from being in depth to fairly brief.
Now to the review, on starting this book you're thrown into multiple character POV's that both establish the story and for hinder it to start. I struggled relating to the characters with so many being thrown around and the amount of build up created a suspense that could have gone two ways, either an epic character meet-up with great relationship's waiting to be developed or a fizzle out and forced union of characters that we've met along this journey that makes no sense. For me it turned into a mixture of the two. I enjoyed the plot points, the ways in which this mysterious demon smoke seemed to in some way or another come into the lives of all five characters but at the same time it was long time played out for a brief ending of the group finally being brought together. The character's, though fleshed out, felt like they could of either met sooner, or plot points in the middle could have been missed without affecting the overall story arc.
A good way to explore this book is through the characters that we meet and journey through the eyes of. This next part of the review may contain some spoilers.
Let's start with young Tash, the demon hunter. She's a hardy, scrappy character who finds herself working for a burly father-like figure of a man, Gravell. I both loved and hated her as a character, I think it was aminly due to her being such a young age (hinted at around 13) Tash's story becomes wrought with wanting a particularly pretty pair of boots and Gravell not giving her the money for them, when the demon smoke is stolen by a key character Edyon, her and Gravell decide to pursuit him.Her journey feels as if she could of just lost the demon smoke and then have it flick back to them finding it again for the end of the book.
Princess Catherine of Brigant. Her journey is probably one of the strongest in the book, with her appearing quite meek with a silent strength to her exuding that strength and making deep connections that will come to affect the series, the only downside I found was the pining, it did feel like a constant battle between duty and wanting to know whether Ambrose was OK. Sir Ambrose, royal guard to Princess Catherine. He comes across as your typical knight in shining armour, which is why I love him but also struggle to relate to him and his journey, he expects for Catherine to need saving, yet she ends up saving him in many aspects of this book.
March, a servant to a neighbouring kingdom of Brigant and Pitoria, Calidor. He despises his King, who seems to try and treat him as at the very least a friend, for decimating his people. His hatred I understand but I feel like his adamant betrayal of his king and thus Edyon becomes painful for the reader purely because he seems to not grasp the entire story of why his king couldn't help. I may be inferring too much here but I absolutely despised his journey and relationship with a fellow Abask soldier, he seemed to follow blindly and not question his own feelings until much later in the book. His journey is definitely one that I think will grow in further books as he chooses to become his own person.
Edyon is probably my favourite character, he is a young at heart serial romantic who has an itchy compulsion to steal things that catch his eye. This inevitably gets him into trouble. His blind trust is almost sad but he is comic relief and probably the most lovable character of the whole book, his feelings for March aren't forced upon you for the sake of LGBT+ representation and I'm genuinely excited for his journey to continue.
Overall these five character's offer the prospect for a great journey, despite this first book being hard to read at first, I was devouring the final chapters, which can only hint at a hopefully explosive sequel that continues on from the cliffhanger now that our motley crew of character's have met and been forced on this journey together.
May your next book be found,
Kif.
