#+2 points

I read the German version, translated by Alexandra Ernst

Five young people in a big fantasy world, a princess, a soldier, a huntress, a thief and a traitor, go on their own adventures, and suddenly meet each other through a series of coincidences and planned events. That’s not much of a description, but it certainly sounded interesting, so I had some expectations when I started this book. Sadly, they got lower, and lower, and lower... and were finally met, at least more or less.

Every one of these characters has their own plot: The princess of Brigant, Catherine,  has to move to Pitoria to marry a prince she’s never met. The soldier, Ambrose, is secretly in love with Catherine, and thus gets falsely accused of treason by her brother. The huntress, Tash, is a young girl hunting demons. The thief, Edyon, is an illegitimate son of a king and stole demon smoke from Tash. March, the traitor, is an ex-servant of Edyons father and wants to abduct Edyon to avenge the death of his family.

The story itself surely has potential, and I personally really liked the way the characters’ lives got intertwined. Sadly, the characters are a bit weak.

Catherine and Ambrose have nothing for each other but physical attraction. That’s it. They flirt awkwardly, but of course the reader knows - they are deeply in love. The characters generally all are a bit naive, and kind of flat, they seem to have maybe two character traits.

We do not see much character development either. Suddenly, Catherine has confidence, and suddenly, March has feelings, but where does that come from? We only see the beginning and the end of the arc, but not the arc itself.

Also, the general style is... weird. It seems to want to be a Game of Thrones for younger readers. We have a lot of death, we have misogyny and homophobia, and I really do not see the reason why. Most of these deaths are just happening in a sentence or two, one character cries a bit, and then we’re done with it - maybe we think about it again to remind us that the king is evil. In general, important scenes get done super quickly. Fight? Done. Flight? Done. Death? DONE. As if it was nothing important, when actually it is. And the book is sometimes a bit vulgar in ways that simply would not have been necessary.

It’s a good book to study writing, though, but mostly just because the mistakes are quite obvious. Catherine’s mother has a single purpose in this book, and that purpose is exposition, by explaining things to Catherine that she should know, just to explain them to the reader, and by showing the reader what an evil man the king is. The arcs, as I said, simply are not to be found. And a quick tip to every writer: Having a gay character that falls for a boy that later has hints of feelings for him, too, and one dark skinned girl with blue eyes and blonde dreadlocks that are being described as looking like a bird’s nest does not make your writing diverse. Not at all.

I wish I could say better things about the story. As I said, the plot is good. And I did read it to the end, and I did enjoy it, at least most of the time, starting from the middle. But this book would have to be re-written, in my opinion. With actually interesting and well-rounded characters that have more than one or two traits. With diversity. With villains that are not just evil. With less homophobia and misogyny, because why is that necessary. With romance that bases on time spent together instead of just physical attraction. With less, but more meaningful character deaths. Because at the end of the book I was quite close to thinking that the author plans on leaving those five characters as the last humans alive.

So, yeah, I will give this book 2 points. I thought about three, but I have my review rating system in front of me, and this story just... doesn’t give me enough for it. Well, the story does. The characters and the style don’t.

Find it on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34508382-the-smoke-thieves