I read other books by sally green and really enjoyed them so I knew I had to read her latest book and I'm so glad I did. In this book we follow several characters and switch perspective which included Tash, Catherine, March and Edyon. It took me a little while to get into the book and with so many perspectives it can be a little slow but overall I highly recommend reading it as when I got into the story I couldn't stop reading it.

Four key characters, and we switch perspectives so it can seem slow on occasion. However, the story puts in place a promising idea for the next part in the series.
We are introduced in turn to Tash (a young demon-hunter who risks her life every time she goes out), princess Catherine (a young girl forced to marry someone she’s never met), March (a servant who is determined to avenge the suffering of his people) and the bastard son of the prince, Edyon (a common thief).
It takes some time for us to work out what’s going on, and the crux of the story isn’t revealed until very near the end so it could leave some readers a little disappointed. I felt it took time to establish the voices of the different characters, and the mix of viewpoints inevitably left me feeling they weren’t as fleshed out as I’d have liked.
That said, the world is reasonably presented and there is plenty here to get your attention. The rather obvious love triangle seems unnecessary - I’d hope Catherine will come into her own as the series continues - and I remain unconvinced by the attempts to depict a relationship that is not heterosexual. However, the premise of the story and some of the secondary characters more than make up for the areas that don’t seem so successful.
Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this prior to publication.

This is a triumph of YA fiction - I read it myself and then read it again with my daughter as I knew she would love it. There is a great balance of teenage angst and mystery and it has a very exciting tension the whole way through. Well written and very enjoyable.

Characters
With five protagonists, you’ll be hard pushed to not find one you are drawn to. If you’re like me, you’ll love them all but I couldn’t leave the review without talking about Princess Catherine. She is the daughter of the Brigant King who is marrying her off to improve relations with a neighbouring land.
Catherine is a powerful, headstrong and intelligent character. She’s everything you want from a character in a male dominated world, attempting to make changes in the society in which she lives. It’s scary how relevant her characterisation is and how much of a role model she will be to people who read the book.
In contrast, you have Tash. She is the youngest of the five but is perhaps the strongest and world weary of them all. She knows her place but won’t let anyone get the better of her if she can help it. While you will want to protect her, she can hold her own and you’ll love her all the more for it.                                                                                                                               
Plot
There have already been many comparisons of the Smoke Thieves to Game of Thrones, and for good reason. The plot focuses upon five characters that have individual narratives with some overlap. It’s almost as if each one has a piece of a puzzle.
The plot begs you to question motives, actions and outcomes as it gains momentum and almost reaches its endgame. However, as you reach the end of the book you’ll be begging for more; some questions have been left unanswered while there is a conclusion that will leave everyone satisfied.  
Writing
Sally Green’s writing is engaging, emotionally driven and perfect for this kind of storytelling. You don’t get lost in her words, but her world. While the book contains a glossary for places and such that are introduced in this book, but you won’t find yourself back and forth between the narrative and the descriptions.

“She thought of Ambrose still, every day” 


Every paragraph, it felt like.

I'm really disappointed with The Smoke Thieves. I was hoping this would be an opportunity to rekindle my love for Green's books after Half Bad's sequels dampened it. Unfortunately, this is an overlong, generic fantasy story that is spread too thin across its five perspectives.

This book is being sold as a Game of Thrones for younger readers, or those looking for something more easy-to-digest than Martin's monstrous 1000-page volumes. But if that's what you're looking for, Rhodes's Falling Kingdoms series is much more palatable and manages its multiple POVs far more effectively.

The Smoke Thieves paints in some wishy washy Medieval-style world-building, in which conflicts exist between the vaguely-imagined lands of Calidor, Pitoria and Brigant (map included). Past invasions and wars have fuelled tensions between them leading to the current delicate peace period. Women here are largely viewed as second-class citizens and are expected to be subservient to men.

Into this come our five protagonists. The Calidorian princess, Catherine, is betrothed to Prince Tzsayn of Pitoria, but has some not-so-secret lusty feelings for her bodyguard, Ambrose. March is a servant to the prince and he comes from Abask - a small area of land that was destroyed in the war between Calidor and Brigant - and he longs for revenge. Edyon is a thief whom March is searching for, but they end up falling for each other instead. And Tash is a thirteen year-old demon hunter.

It was really difficult to settle into the perspective of any of the characters with the constant switching between them. The book was spread so thin across them all that I found myself never really connecting with anyone. Five perspectives is often a bit much in the hands of an author who handles them well; when not handled well, it is just plain bad.

There was also very little depth, intrigue or tension. Everything is black and white, with the villains - King Aloysius and Boris - being cartoonishly evil. Sometimes there was literally no reason at all for them to act the way they did. Many of the violent scenes felt gratuitous.

Both romances left something to be desired. Catherine and Ambrose are daydreaming about each other from the start of the book. There's absolutely zero chemistry or tension between them, no will they/won't they, and their "love" for one another seems to stem from nothing more than physical attraction. There's also something of a love triangle going on.

March was one of the least interesting characters, so his romance with Edyon failed to touch me either. I'm also concerned after reading the Half Bad series that (view spoiler)

Then there's the fact that, for most of the book, the demon aspect and the "smoke" actually have very little bearing on anything. I'm assuming this will be developed in future installments, but it seems strange that the whole premise of the book doesn't play a bigger part.

It was just a boring and unexciting book, overall. I was unmoved by the characters and plot, and it didn't seem to do anything new or particularly engaging. The use of "fuck" in the Medieval-style setting felt jarring, too. I have no desire to read on, even though the book's abrupt non-ending tries to demand it.

This book was great in part because it pulled out all the elements of books I have recently loved but doesn’t have the things I didn’t like. Ok fine that made no sense. But let me give you an example. I’ve read many a terrible epic fantasy novel in which a female character must win over a nation through her smarts and how she presents herself. In those books, I get quickly bored with how many annoying conversations must be had around the topic. In this book, not only is Catherine a wonderful character who is being incredibly wise, but there is also so much else going on that you don’t get bored of her storyline.

This book is multiple POV and at first, I was a little concerned that there were too many characters to keep track of. However, there are only about three storylines going on at the same time, and instead of getting pulled miles away from each other, you’re given different points of view in the same situations. I thought this was a great way to build in more character development and to help the reader to see how characters were reacting to certain situations.

The pacing of this book is arguably a little slow. It has the feel of the first novel in an epic fantasy series, in that it takes a long time to set all the pieces in play only to really start the action near the end of the book. If you’re looking for a book that will satisfy your fantasy itch at a moment’s notice, this may not be the book for that situation. However, it has made me excited to read later books in this series as and when they come out.

There wasn’t as much magic in this book as I was expecting, it’s much more a book about individuals and the way small (arguably insignificant in some cases) people can shape the events of a world. The demon smoke element is more of a catalyst that brings these characters together at various points. It did seem as though this could be used more in later novels so those who crave a more ‘fantastical’ setting should not despair!

This was the first time I’ve ever read a Sally Green book but I think her writing was excellent. The different voices of the many characters were all clearly defined and there was just the right balance between action and dialogue. My favourite characters were the two female POVs (Quelle surprise!) Tash and Catherine who were incredibly different but both entirely relatable.

My rating: 4/5 stars

I received a digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Oh I loved this so much! Since Half Bad i've loved Sally Green and this didn't disappoint and i'm desperate for the next!

This book was definitely not the best fantasy I have ever read, but I still really enjoyed it. I found myself getting more and more into it the further I read. There wasn't really anything I didn't enjoy about this book, but it didn't blow me away either.

This book is told from 5 different perspectives and I never found myself getting confused about which perspective I was reading from, which was good. I really enjoyed reading from all the perspectives, but there wasn't any one perspective that stood out from the rest for me.

I really enjoyed the world. I liked that we got to see bits of all the different kingdoms, and I thought the world had some really cool aspects to it, like the stuff with the demons and their smoke.

I was enjoying the plot of this book right from the start, then about halfway through I started to get way more into it. It started to get really interesting, and by the end I found myself really wanting the next book right away.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and I can't wait for the next one.

The Smoke Thieves was an good but not great read for me. It had some really good character moments but I was engrossed in the overall story.

A great read. The characters develop very well and the story flows adequately. However, at times I found it difficult to connect to the story, and struggled to read it at times.

This was really very good but frustrating at the same time. The story is told from several characters’ points of view and it is obvious that their paths will cross from fairly early on. But they don’t all meet up until the last part of the book. Also, it ends just as the story is coming together and leaves an eager reader hanging on for the next book! The characters in their book are well fleshed out. The take on demons was original. There is a lot of action especially towards the end. I really enjoyed what has been revealed of demon hunting, of King Aloysius’ motivation for war, and the character development particularly of Princess Catherine. We are left wondering whether Catherine will choose either of her two suitors. I liked the fact that not all of the characters we meet survive. The pacing was just a little slow in the middle. Very much enjoyed and recommended.
Thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book. All opinions are my own.

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?

Thank you to Netgalley and Viking for the ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.

They say fortune favours the brave. Having already tried Sally Green's Half Bad trilogy only to give up after book one, I wasn't entirely sure this would be a book for me. As far as I remember, her writing style is pretty told rather than shown, with lots of unnecessary passive language which makes it feel as though it's intended for an older middle grade audience, rather than YA as it is advertised.

When I opened the book and saw the first few pages, I was even more cautious. For the first 10-20% of the novel, I felt like I was crawling through honey to get to the next chapter. Although I liked Catherine's chapters, I wasn't sold on March or Tash, or even Ambrose, and I was keen to skip past them to get back to the one I enjoyed. And even then, the passive language made the snarky critic inside of me scream. There were so many lines which only needed a tweak to make them less passive and it really bugged me to keep reading them, especially because I know from querying and beta-reading that it is an absolute writing sin. 

Thankfully, after I waded through that first section, things improved. I'm not entirely certain that the passive told language went away, rather the interesting plot developments and characters masked the downfalls of The Smoke Thieves a little better. Catherine's sections were still my favourite, and I enjoyed reading scenes where her intelligent and courageous personality shone out, even as her father and brother tried to make her feel weak and useless. Catherine's Brigant is a very patriarchal country, where women are not seen as equal, and as much as that annoyed me, I liked seeing Catherine challenge these views and put people in their place. And she did it so elegantly too, always with grace and poise. She instantly became my favourite character. Especially considering her awful father and brother. They put her through a lot, use her as a bargaining chip against her will, and punish her for anything they consider an indiscretion, despite Catherine's initial promise to obey her father's word as law.

 March and Edyon grew on me too, if only because there were layers to their personalities. There's a lot of humour in their scenes that made me laugh, and the whole mystery surrounding their discovery of demon smoke properties kept me interested throughout the novel. Tash still didn't hold my curiosity, and her chapters were a bit difficult for me. I'm not sure why I didn't warm to her, but I just couldn't. I guess that happens sometimes.

It was great to see how these separate plots and characters eventually converged together, and the stakes are slowly but surely raised to scary heights, which pushed the pace of the book on enough. I was still disappointed with the passive writing style, since I thought the book deserved a bit more flair, and for that reason I've knocked a few stars off the rating I might have given it.

7/10 stars from me. I liked it a lot more than Green's Half Bad series, and I'll probably get the next book when it comes out, but the passive told rather than shown language grated on me a lot.

Oh wow. What a world. I love, love, love the effort that has gone into the world building, it really feels like epic high fantasy throughout. The story moves between four main characters, all of who I really liked, but it’s hard not to love Catherine struggling with the rigidity of life for women in Brigant, or Tash being a young and daring demon hunter! March took me a little while longer to connect to, but his relationship with Edyon is fab! Edyon is probably just about my least favourite, but I still really like him!

The geography of the world feels so real as well. I know that’s possibly an odd thing to comment on, but it does! I could picture bits, and I could feel the essence of each place. I think that takes real skill as a story teller.

I also love little details, especially around life in Pitoria! The dyed hair, the dancing (💙💙💙), the more relaxed way of life. I really enjoyed watching the story weave over itself too - the characters getting closer but not really knowing how they’d all meet and how things would be resolved. It felt like you knew what was going on but not what would happen next, which is a fine line to walk on! Excellently done.

I’m dying to know more about this world - what is the truth about Abask, what is the history of demons, what happens next???? Okay mostly the last one. And given this book isn’t out yet, how am I supposed to cope with the wait until the next one?!?! I just love the whole concept of the demon smoke and especially what we learn towards the end.

I am giving The Smoke Thieves 4.5 stars, and even then, I struggled not to give it 5. The only reason I didn’t is because it’s possibly a little slow. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, it does a great job of being a build up for something wider. I’m not sure how long the planned series is, but I hope very long lol!!

I am afraid this book was not for me. 
The characters did not engage me and I did not enjoy the story line.

Fantastic book! In the beginning, I was a bit bothered by the constant switch between the lives of the different characters, most of whom were in different lands, but the writing was good, each person’s story was interesting, and eventually their path toward one another became clear. The author has done a fabulous job of giving life and personality to each of the main characters and to the world they inhabit. Halfway through the book, I could no longer put it down, and it’s now 4:30 AM as I write this review. While I’m not entirely sure that this would be a good book for teens, given the level of violence, I am certainly going to be waiting anxiously for the story to continue.

I have heard good things about Sally Green’s other books (The Half bad trilogy). Which I must confess I haven’t read yet, So, I was looking forward to reading this.
 The Smoke thieves is a historical fantasy novel. Where the story tells of several different characters from different lands and they all seem to connect together by Demon smoke. There is also a war between these lands and their fight it to get hold of it. But in these lands Demon smoke is actually illegal. 
This is a great start to un-putdown-able page turner, that will be a hit to any Sally Green fans and readers that enjoy medieval stories of wars and kings and queens. This was beautifully written and I liked the way the author described each person, from their customs to what they wore and how they dyed their hair.  This story was very well thought out. The only thing that disappointed me about this book that it was has such an abrupt ending. What happened there??
Thank you Netgalley and Penguin Random House for an ARC of this book

I was so excited when I first heard about this book, mainly because I enjoyed Green's previous novel series, the Half Bad trilogy and I'm glad to say this book did not disappoint at all. 
Sally Green just has a way with her writing style that just sucks me in right away, I devoured this book and already wish I had the second book in my hands this minute. I just loved the fantasy world that was created, I normally don't like the Game of Thrones style that most authors seem to recreate, although, given the popularity of that series, it's easy to see why despite the fact I'm not a fan of Game of Thrones, however, I thought Green made her fantasy world so unique that people should not be put off by this comparison to GOT. I absolutely loved the characters, I really liked the numerous characters and the fact I could keep track of all of them without getting myself confused about who was who. I strongly recommend this one.

I quite enjoyed Sally Green's previous titles; but this one didn't really engage me much. It felt quite predictable, sorry! I didn't dislike the people or plot, and it's nice to have intelligent female characters.... but it just didn't hold my attention.

A truly excellent imagining of a fantasy world in which five young people are brought together to prevent the machinations of a truly evil king and his son.  The characters range from the daughter of the king, a thief and even a traitor.  It is fascinating as their stories are brought together during their  search for the "Demon Smoke" that the king is desperate to obtain.  this is aimed at older teens and there is swearing and violence, but no s*x 

However as with all fiction I am sure that it will be read by a younger audience, particularly those who are fans of series such as “Game of Thrones” and “Lord of the Rings”.

I really enjoyed that! It took me some time to get used to all the names and the different locations but in the end it was nice to see all the different point of views. I also loved how the story of each character unfolds and fate brings everyone together. 

I have to say that it reminded me a lot of The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. It also had a thief, lots of politics between different countries and lots of POVs.

I can't wait for book no. 2 :)