Huge thank you to Penguin Random House for providing me with an ARC of The Smoke Thieves to read and review. ♥
The Smoke Thieves by Sally GreenSeries: The Smoke Thieves #1
Published by: Viking Juvenile on May 1, 2018
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 544
Source: ARC From Publisher
Book Details
Rating: ★★★
A shrewd princess whose father is plotting against her. A brave soldier turned traitor. A loyal servant on a quest to avenge his family. A streetwise demon smoke hunter in desperate need of money. A charming thief with no clue about his true identity. Their lives would never intersect, until a war between kingdoms bubbles up, and the dangerous truth about demon smoke intertwines all their fates. Welcome to The Smoke Thieves, a tangled web of political intrigue, shifting alliances, and forbidden love, in a world where sometimes no amount of magic can keep you safe.
The first time I tried reading The Smoke Thieves I didn’t finish it. I put it down after two chapters.
A couple days ago I decided to give The Smoke Thieves another shot in case the first time was due to me just not being in the mood. Luckily I actually managed to finish it this time!
Sadly I still didn’t love The Smoke Thieves. For me it was just okay.
Most of the book wasn’t super thrilling. Sure, there were a few mysteries to keep you going, but the whole thing just wasn’t super exciting. There were several different points of view:
- Tash, the demon hunter. Her chapters were okay. She was kind of cute and spunky.
- Catherine, a princess getting ready for an arranged marriage. Her chapters were easily my favourite! I love the idea of a princess going to a new kingdom, facing an arranged marriage, torn between political allegiances, etc. Her relationship with Ambrose was kind of eyerolly (see below) but luckily there was a bunch of other stuff going on too. I particularly loved her interactions with her betrothed.
- Ambrose, the princess’s bodyguard and labelled traitor. I didn’t love him as much as I wanted to. I thought his character was a little cardboardy. It was a great character on paper: a guy betrayed by his country and falling in love with the princess he’s supposed to be protecting. But in practice he just wasn’t that exciting. There’s supposed to be kind of a flirty forbidden romance there but I wasn’t feeling it. Zero chemistry. And Catherine kind of acted like a 16 year old girl and Ambrose more like a 28 year old guy. Maybe I’m totally off but that’s what I was picturing.
- March, a servant seeking revenge on his master (a prince). His backstory was kind of cool but I wasn’t super entertained by his chapters. Mostly just boring.
- Edyon, a kleptomaniac. He was kind of a naive frilly snob. He was probably my least favourite along with Marsh. His attitude just grated on me.
The two biggest downsides for me were the lack of connection/investment I felt, and something about the writing style just kind of kept me at arm’s length. I had a hard time really clicking with this book.
I feel like this fantasy was really “proper”. Everything about it felt kind of refined and picture-perfect. It’s not that everything was awesome, it’s more like every character had their specific personality and place and they played it to a T. There was very little grey area and it made all the characters seem fake. For instance, there’s this character Boris who’s HORRIBLE but he’s almost unbelievably horrible? The things he said seemed clownish. He thinks super highly of himself, is a massive sexist, and treated his sister like dirt. Another reviewer labelled him as “cartoonishly evil” and that’s a great way to put it. I couldn’t even love to hate him; he was just terribly annoying.
In fact, now that I think about it more, I think the synopsis is very telling. Each character has been labelled as something and that 100% seems to define and drive who they are. There’s not much more to each character than how they’re described in the synopsis.
But the best parts were Catherine’s chapters—I was always eager to get to those—and when things finally picked up pace at the end.
If you’ve read and enjoyed Sally Green’s others books (I hadn’t read any) then I do recommend you give this book a shot. If you already know that you click with her writing style then you might enjoy the book a lot more than I did. The ending is actually kind of exciting so there is some potential here.
I felt the same. The story really started at page 396. It missed the story arc in each book, like the Harry Potter series has, to keep you enthralled through the entire series. I struggled through it but kind of curious about the next one.
Sorry you felt the same way. 🙁 I agree with you that the story really starts almost at the end! This book felt more like a really really long prologue rather than a proper story arc.
My review is scheduled for Wednesday publishing but I have advised waiting for the entire series to be finished and then binge it. While there’s nothing that original about it, I think it could be good as a whole. But that did only come from the last 100 pages.
This sounds almost like a Falling Kingdoms rip-off.
I actually don’t think it’s that similar to Falling Kingdoms. They feel like totally different stories and have very different vibes.
That’s such a bummer when you give a book a second chance and it still disappoints you. I’ve definitely been there a few times!!
Yeah it’s a let down. 🙁 Oh well! I’m reading Shadowcaster now and loving it!
Awesome that you were able to finish it at least! The cover is awesome and the description sounds great, but boy that is a lot of POVs. I probably would have trouble connecting with this one.
One of the reasons I’m so disappointed I didn’t love this is because I adore the cover. I was wanting to buy a physical copy for my collection because it’s so pretty. But I probably won’t now that I didn’t love it.
I haven’t read any Sally Green before so I can’t speak to her writing style but this does sound very cliche unfortunately. I don’t mind characters having their roles but I also like when there are grey areas or they subvert them or surprise you. Doesn’t sound like that’s going on here, which is a shame. I commend you for giving it another shot though!
Interesting and extraordinary plot! Thanks for providing us an insightful review. I think this book is worth reading from cover to cover. I love thrilling and fantasy stories to read during my idle hours. However, I’m not a big fan of prince and princesses so I think I will try to buy other books too. The good thing about this book is that it has thrilling political agenda that makes it really interesting for me plus the unconventional types of characters to watch out for. Got to grab a copy soon!