Review: The Smoke Thieves

The Smoke Thieves
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

A princess, a traitor, a hunter and a thief. Four teenagers with the fate of the world in their hands. Four nations destined for conflict. 

In Brigant, Princess Catherine prepares for a loveless political marriage arranged by her brutal and ambitious father. In Calidor, downtrodden servant March seeks revenge on the prince who betrayed his people. In Pitoria, feckless Edyon steals cheap baubles for cheaper thrills as he drifts from town to town. And in the barren northern territories, thirteen-year-old Tash is running for her life as she plays bait for the gruff demon hunter Gravell.

As alliances shift and shatter, and old certainties are overturned, our four heroes find their past lives transformed and their futures inextricably linked by the unpredictable tides of magic and war. Who will rise and who will fall? And who will claim the ultimate prize?

I have to admit, I still haven't read the Half Bad series, the first book has been sitting on my TBR for ages, and I keep meaning to get to it but time! So when I was asked if I'd like an ARC of her latest book, I had to say yes, especially as it sounded right up my street and I've been so eager to get to it! I actually took it to set with me and started reading it in between takes, before finally binge reading the entire last 3/4 of it at the weekend and I basically really need book two now! 

The opening is intriguing and introduces you to what promises to be an interesting world. We meet Tash first, who's a little badass in her own way, considering she acts as bait. Her POV's are action packed and intense for the most part. I will admit though, she did kind of annoy me at parts but only because of my love for the characters she ends up interacting with the most. It also reached a point where I felt like she was only there for the information on the demons, but towards the end of the book I started to really like her and there's so much opportunity for her character in the next book! 

Catherine.... I'd been curious about her because I got her card with my ARC and I was curious about what kind of character she'd be. Man...I empathised with her so much. Her brothers where kind of crappy and she's backed in to a really crappy corner. Her POV's are tense for a different reason, she's a nice character. She's witty and snarky at points and I was rooting for her because she's intelligent, and once she got away from her family you saw a different side of her as she got to have some freedom. I feel like this book was quite character building for her, by the end of the book she has a vision and I'm backing her to get it to come true. I'm hoping we get to see her become a bigger, more confident character in the next book with some bite! 

Ambrose....I really ship him with Catherine! His POV provides a murder mystery kind of aspect as he tries to work out why his sister was killed and what's going on in Fielding. By the end of the book he's changed quite a bit, and I'm not sure if it's going to be a good or bad change in the long run but it's going to be interesting to see where his character goes. However, when we met Tzsayn...I'm now torn on who I ship Catherine with. She has a choice for once. I actually really liked what we saw of Tzsayn, he's kind of awesome and I'd like to see more of him but things don't look too great for him by the end of the book! 

March...I wasn't sure I liked him at first because I did quite like Edyon as useless as he may seem. I shipped he and Edyon so badly and March's thoughts and opinions change over the course of the book, I was rooting for him to do the right thing but he's still got some things to wrestle with and overcome. As for Edyon, like I said, I did actually really like him despite the fact he's a bit of an idiot at points! He was trying his hardest, and I'm hoping to see his character grow and develop some more in the next book! 

I have to say, Noyes and Boris where such a-holes. They made me quite ragey as I was reading. Not to mention lang. Man I'd love to stick his head on a pike and see how he likes it. I don't usually ask authors to kill characters but come on Sally....please? Or at least just maim them a little bit....and a bit more in Lang's case. I don't think he learned his lesson. 

Anyway, aside from those three nasty characters, those are our POV characters, and the different POV's or rather the volume of them, put me in mind of Game of Thrones as it's the only other fantasy book I've read with quite so many different POV's! Unlike Game of Thrones however, I feel like the different POV's in this book are a lot more cohesive and work together much better. Sorry!  

The plot steadily builds up over the course of the book as our characters meet up bit by bit and come together, and their stories twine together brilliantly. There's mystery in what happened to Ann and what's going on with the boys, suspense in Edyon's escape with March and his friend, tension in Catherine and the situation she's heading in to, as well as triumph in seeing her get to become herself and become who she wants, while Tash provides us with plenty of action. 

While the beginning may be slow, it was certainly intriguing. The world is interesting, I found it to be very original, with the demon smoke, it's a historical fantasy and the demon smoke provides what serves as magic in this world. I was fascinated by it and the different options for it. The world actually has lots of fun points to it! Not to mention it's created so vividly and Sally's writing painted a vivid picture, which is what hooked me in from the start. I honestly got chills during Catherine's first POV chapter. 

The characters too are intriguing, each is very different from the other, and I was curious to see how they and their individual plot lines would connect and come together, something that steadily and seamlessly came about. I really loved how they where all joined together, and how they came together at the end because the end of the book sees all of our POV characters brought together, and each one brings a different piece of the puzzle that slots the over arcing plot in to place and fills in what we don't know, so that by the end of the book everything suddenly becomes clear. 

I'm excited to see where the next book is going to go and how the characters can grow and change and I'm excited to see all the characters working together and interacting, they've been such an interesting bunch individually I'm excited to see how they are collectively! They're quite the rag tag team! There's so many little plot threads to play out too! 

I really enjoyed the book, the writing was brilliant, the characters where fun and vastly different from each other. Little hints and puzzle pieces where dropped for you to figure out, and there was plenty of action, blood, tension and suspense. Catherine's Kingdom is brutal and bloody and Tzsayn's Kingdom is an interesting contrast and I really liked how Catherine came to discover that and how it was portrayed through her view point. I should also mention that there's romance too and a few different ships to ship! My one disappointment is that we didn't get to see more of Tzsayn because I kept feeling like there's a secret to him and what happened to him but I could be wrong! 

Either way, this is a brilliant start to an exciting and unique new series, and I need book two in my hot little hands as soon as possible please! This is going to be my new series to obsess over!