If you like fantasy you will like this book. There are five main characters but they all revolve around the two female protagonists, Catherine - a princess, and Tash - a 13 year old assistant demon hunter. This is a medieval world of kingdoms at war, intrigue, betrayal  and cunning.   Faced paced and an easy read. My only quibble - I know this is the first of a sequel but I thought the ending too abrupt. However I did enjoy the book.

anyone who enjoys fantasy will love this book.
It was so well written and the world was amazingly built.
I felt for all the characters and couldn't wait to continue reading on - the plot was so gripping from the start.

I was a huge fan of Sally Green's Half Bad series so when I heard she had turned her hand to a multi-pov fantasy I was beyond excited....and she didn't disappoint. Like Half Bad the world is incredibly vivid and the characters layered and complex. I'm relived this part of a series as I simply could not get enough. The only problem will be waiting a year for the next installment!!

DNF/Put down for now - 28%

This book is taking me forever to get into, I am enjoying the way in which the author writes, it's just kind of hard work getting through a couple of the perspectives. It feels a little jumpy, and I'm not enjoying it right now. I am very intrigued by Tash's perspective but every time it switches to one of the other characters I get fed up and put it down. I know I will return to this at some point and really enjoy it but for now it's a dnf.

Welcome to "The Smoke Thieves", a medieval-inspired world of kings, princesses and demons!

CONS

Demons. Magical creatures (good or evil) always steal my heart. I'm excited about the sequel to learn more about these human-like red, orange and purple demons and about the demon smoke. Oh, and this leads me to ...

TASH! A spunky thirteen year-old demon hunter. At first, she did annoy me because all she could think about was buying some boots. But then she grew on me with her attitude. 

Female Power! Sadly, women always lived (and still do) in a world that sees them as weak and less capable than men. Catherine's journey from an oppressed princess to a woman who speaks her mind shows that any woman - anyone - has the power to forge her own path and the power to gain agency. It's such a beautiful message.

CONS

Where are the plot twists? I'm not saying the plot is predictable, but there are clues since the beginning of what is going to happen, so in the end there were no twists (and only one death made my heart ache).

Edyon. It annoyed me how he could be freezing to death (and running for his life), but all he could think about was having March on a bed. I was hoping for a cute romance, but Edyon ended up being too pushy. And that's not okay!

A princess, a traitor, a soldier, a hunter and a thief. The lands of Calidor, Brigant and Pitoria are at odds. Five teenagers with the fate of the world in their hands. Five nations destined for conflict, and so you need to find out how... 

 

What a fast paced, engaging read. It features through its core the arrogance of royal Brigant men, making great and brutal baddies. Predominantly this is set against the more courteous and noble Pretorian people. Then there is the devil smoke and the power it holds that is a precursor for war.  

 

Each chapter moves between the lives and events of these teenagers concurrently, so that you determine how their lives will eventually converge. Of note some of the battle scenes and injuries are quite graphic, which some readers may struggle with, but this does well to convey the brutality of King Aloysius.  

 

All the teenagers are very different in their nature. They encounter a plethora of people on their travels of which many are untrustworthy. The characters like the carnival depictured are colourful and somewhat exotic. There is fighting, the need to draw upon lots of wherewithal, route out deception and subterfuge, amidst some tormented romance, good looking knights and good old heroism. The female characters are intelligent and formidable in their own rights and all the characters develop nicely. Essentially everything a YA series ought to offer. Not sure I would compare it to a YA King of Thrones, but taking on board the warring families, book one definitely leaves you with a sense of an all-consuming adventure, cut throat behaviour and plenty of perils along the way.

Ok so for the first time I feel like I really don't know how to rate The Smoke Thieves. I can't work out if 3.5 is too high or too low. I really struggled for the middle third of the book and it was only when I hit the last third I felt like I actually wanted to find out the ending.

The Smoke Thieves follows five characters, a princess (Catherine), a traitor (March), a hunter (Tash), a solider (Ambrose) and a thief (Edyon). I did feel in parts that all of these points of view were a little bit overwhelming. Though towards the end of the book it did get better. I found that I loved reading Catherine, Tash and Edyon's parts but found Ambrose's kind of boring and March's really tough to read too.

I really loved that at the start of a chapter of Catherine's POV we got an except from a fictional book from the world of The Smoke Thieves. I found this really helped with the world building and helped to highlight the differences between the countries (as well as helping the reader understand Catherine too.)

I found myself most drawn to Catherine, Tash, Edyon. Though I must confess I found Catherine a little bit whiny at times, especially when it came to her thoughts regarding Ambrose. What I did love about Catherine was that she really took to adapting to her new life, and became her own person over the course of the book, it was really interesting to read. She accomplished so much in such a short space of time, and I really can't wait to see what she does in the next book!

I feel like Ambrose was simply a mirror for Catherine's feelings and there were only a few points when his narrative added to the story. Maybe one less point of view would have worked better and helped with the slow pacing in the middle of then book?

I loved Tash's character, she was bold and fierce and I found her working relationship with, and devotion to Gravell to be really interesting. I think that Tash was the most interesting character for me, and I can't wait to see where her story goes in the later books.

Edyon was just so likeable and I loved reading from his POV. I even found March more endearing through Edyon's eyes, as much as I disliked reading March's POV. I felt that the budding romance between Edyon and March was much more interesting than the Catherine/Ambrose one.

As for March, I just couldn't find anything likeable about him, I know that he background went some ways to explain it and he was manipulated by a character who I won't name as I don't want to spoil things. But I just found him too venomous, but I am hoping that the character development, which started towards the end of then book, continues in book two as I liked the way it was headed.

All in all I found that The Smoke Thieves was an enjoyable fantasy read, there were so really interesting parts, like demons and the demon smoke, and some really interesting characters. The middle section of the book was a little too slow for my liking and I feel that 5 pov really stretched the focus a bit too much. The cliffhanger ending was a good one and I will definitely be reading the next book in the series when it is released.

This book was interesting from the opening chapter. It was the first multi-perspective novel that I've read in a while where I actually enjoyed all of the characters- usually there is at least one where I have to drag myself through their chapters because I just didn't care- but all the characters here were interesting and their narrative styles unique. The world felt a little under-developed, I was left wanting to know more about it than I got because there was so much potential for fascination. The book was mostly a set-up for the sequel, which also left the plot a little lacking as the closure-to-establishment ratio was a bit off. That being said, I am excited to read the second instalment

A fantastic start to a series - this fantastical book will leave you constantly asking questions as the 5 story-lines inter-cross and weave and meet, finally, at the end. There's a mixture of character with their strengths and weaknesses alike, so there's bound to be a favourite for everyone. Excited to see what happens next!

Awesome - epic characters and awesome world building! Loved it!
Never read anything by Sally green and I’m always wary of starting new fantasy series as I have high expectations but this did the trick. Fantastic!

Sally Green is back and better than ever with the first book in her new fantasy series, 'The Smoke Thieves.' It's my first foray into a fantasy with this many perspectives a la 'Game of Thrones' and, I have to admit, I was blown away by how much I enjoyed it!  

All of the different perspective were necessary, and there wasn't anything overly complicated about the story. I wish the characters had been a bit quicker on the uptake too, as it felt like we were in the mode of exposition for a lot longer than I would usually have liked, but I forgave that on the basis that there were just so many characters to begin with.

Catherine was my favourite, but I also enjoyed Tash and Edyon too. When the threads started to come together, and the characters collided that was my favourite of all, though, so I'm definitely more excited for the next book in the series. 

There's plenty of intrigue, and still a lot of the world-building left to explore, that's for sure, but this - for me - was an excellent start to this fantasy world! And I really appreciated the craft for balancing all of the POVs!

I received an early ARC copy of the book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

When I first heard about this book I was intrigued. After reading so many YA fantasy novels with a single protagonist I was excited to read one that focused on a group, and this is definitely one of the strengths of the book. You get to see the world through so many different perspectives and from differing social classes, which makes it much more layered. I was also excited about the concept of demons and Tash was my favourite character throughout.

Unfortunately I felt like the ensemble cast feel did also detract from the book in that quite a few of the characters didn't really feel fully developed. I think Edyon, Catherine and Tash are probably the most fully realised, and while the others had their drives and motivations they didn't really have much beyond that. Additionally, the world building didn't feel particularly original, as the demons weren't really explained or even really that present, though maybe this is being saved for a sequel. 

Overall I think the main problem with the book is that it's the first in a series, just the tip of the iceberg, but it didn't really absorb me much as a reader into the world. I am curious about how the story progresses but I don't know if I will buy the next book, though perhaps if it expands on the world more I might consider it.

I was so excited when I was approved to read this book, as one of my highly anticipated books of the spring. This book had 5 perspectives, with each chapter coming from a point of view of a different character. There are an abundance of different character backgrounds, from knights, princesses, thieves and demons. The use of demons in this book I found was interesting as it is not a concept I see very often in young adult literature. Overall the book was fast paced and intriguing. Sometimes the story was hard to follow because of how many perspectives there were. However this did not take away from the plot, which was in depth and exciting.

An amazing cast of characters comninated with epic fantasy and with even more epic world building gives us this phenomenal novel!

I really enjoyed reading this book. I loved finding out about the world this was set in – well, except for one of the countries, for the thoroughly ridiculous way the women were treated there. But I feel change is afoot and hopefully that will get sorted out by the end of the series.

This book is told from 4 points of view (pov) to start and a 5th is added a little further in, when it becomes relevant. I really liked watching this one meet that one and the other one come along and totally miss them and how they all converge – because you know they were going to, that’s not a spoiler...right?
I liked it when some of them were together and we saw the same event from multiple angles because that's my favourite thing ever.

I liked the character development of Catherine and March. I look forward to seeing more of it in book 2. They're the most different from the start of the book than any others. I’m not an Ambrose fan, because I like who Catherine is becoming without him and I want her to marry the prince! Because they never do.
I hope March follows through on his promise quickly and I hope it goes down the better way (these things always go the bad way, it's frustrating) – a throwaway line will hopefully be remembered and is possibly highly important!!! So hopefully that will impact the promise too. Is that vague enough to make sure you have no idea what's going on?
I hope so.

I’d like the POV of the prince in the next book too!
I mean, obviously these are the important folk, the ones who are going to change the world or save it or rule the ashes or whatever, but I’d like a POV from him.
And, while I don’t really want one from Catherine’s family at the same time I do because I’d feel anxious about what they are getting up to...

How long do I have to wait for book 2?!
It's not even mentioned as 'untitled' on Goodreads!!

I enjoyed this a lot more than Half Bad, not that Half Bad wasn't a good book, but I found out that the voice put me off it a lot so I couldn't really get into it. With The Smoke Thieves though, it was in Third person and so much easier to get into. 

I loved the characters so much. Each character was so strong and it was great to see them coming from such different places and coming together in various ways. I think though I might have been more interested in hearing from the Prince that Catherine was engaged to though, because I would love to know his side of things, though it might have made for too many character's viewpoints because it was already quite a lot to follow. 

The story was so engrossing and I can't wait for the next book to come out. I want to see how everything works out and which side of things everyone ends up on. There's deception and allegiances and doubt and it really feels as though everything could change at any point. 

The next book is going to be very interesting to read.

The Smoke Thieves is the first book I've read by Sally Green and I'm sorry to say that I was left underwhelmed by it.
It wasn't bad but I feel that it has been over hyped. This has probably contributed a lot to my disappointment. Maybe if I hadn't gone in expecting a YA Game of Thrones, I would have enjoyed the story, and the characters, more.

I enjoyed this book soooo much!
The world was so realistic but also complex and the perfect setting for this type of YA book. There are honestly my favorite books to read (SJM fan here). 
I really liked the multiple POV's.  It took me a little bit of time to get who's doing what and so on, which was a bit confusing. That being said, I really enjoyed it once I got into it as it made it so much easier for me to actually connect with each character. The confusion is why I took a star away, because it did take a while. 
There was betrayal and also a lot of fighting scenes to keep you on your toes and I would love to continue reading the series.

Rating 4.5/5

I was so looking forward to reading this book, I love fantasy books but I was also intrigued as to how each of the characters would be brought together and for what cause. I'm happy to say that I loved it.

The story is told through five points of view we have Catherine the Princess being forced into a political marriage by her father and brother, Tash a young demon hunter, March a servant who decides to seek justice for his people, Edyon a thief who finds himself at the centre of something he would never have imagined and Ambrose one of Catherine's guards who wants to protect her at any cost.

I have to say out of all of these I found Catherine and Tash's chapters the most interesting. I loved how fiery Catherine could be and how even though she was so restricted that she was still defiant in small ways and often managed to outwit those that thought of her as a lesser person. I liked Tash for her rebellious nature and her spirit, I loved the banter between her and Gravell and that you could tell they had each other's backs.

I felt like March and Edyon's part in the story wasn't quite as strong as the rest, since this book is the start of a series I know that they will probably become more central to the story but I didn't feel as gripped through their storylines. I did enjoy witnessing the burgeoning relationship between them but felt like this was the only thing I was really interested in rather than the roles they were playing in the unfolding narrative.

The flirtation between Ambrose and Catherine was something that I was definitely hoping would develop. I loved Ambrose's sense of honour and that he tries to protect the Princess no matter what the cost, but I admit that I was exceptionally intrigued by Catherine's betrothed Prince Tzsayn and I am certainly looking forward to seeing more of him. I have to say the one thing I did admire about this book was that there was no outrageous falling head over heels for someone with one glance, there were the glimmers of forming relationships but this wasn't the main concern for the characters involved.

The pace of the story was almost perfect, I liked that we got time to get to know that characters in the beginning and then as the storylines converge the pace starts to pick up as the action starts to set in. It only lagged a little for me around the middle when we were hearing more from March and Edyon but luckily not for too long and not in a way that really affected my reading experience.

I really enjoyed all the different aspects of this book, the characters, the demons and their smoke, the different nations and their customs, the politics and the treachery, it really had everything I was after. Including an ending that has me desperate to get my hands on the next book.

This book good but it had far too many POV and while I was interested in some of them, others I didn’t really care for.
The plot of the story was good and it was interesting how the author tied all the characters and events together. The only problem was that I would be really enjoying one characters point of view and then it would change to another. I really like Princess Catherine and Edyon and I felt as though they could have a book all of their own and it would have been brilliant. Tash was an intriguing character but I don’t think that she was worthy of being one of the MC’s if anything she should have been kept as a side character, although I did love her relationship with Gravell. As for Ambrose and March their point of views annoyed me, but I did understand why the author included them. Overall this book was 3 stars I enjoyed the plot, but I don’t like so many POV’s.