Please note that this book is not for me - I have read the book, However I had to DNF and because i do not like to give negative reviews I will not review this book fully - there is no specific reason for not liking this book. I found it a struggle to read and did not enjoy trying to force myself to read this book.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused and thank you for the opportunity to read this book

I really enjoyed this political fantasy adventure from Sally Green, the final part of the Smoke Thieves trilogy.

There's less intrigue, assassination, back-stabbing things going on in this installment than earlier ones, as now most of the main pov characters are fairly settled and relatively safe in their different camps. Catherine is ruling as queen in Pitoria, with confidence and good people around her. Ambrose is recovering from his injuries and trying to get back into her life. Edyon has been accepted as his father's heir in Calidor, though that is where we see the bulk of the book's political intrigue as he tries to figure out the court and his place in it.

A lot of the focus of this novel is on relationships and resolution. It's about Catherine trying to decide between Ambrose and Tzsayn, and how to reconcile her feelings for both the men in her life, and it's about Ambrose dealing with this. It's about Edyon coming to terms with Marsh's betrayal of him, the feelings he still has for his old lover, and his relationship with his father. These issues really exploded in book two and it's nice to see them dealt with and resolved by the end of the trilogy.

It's also very much a fantasy novel about war, and I really enjoyed seeing Queen Catherine trying to work out strategies and allegiances to defeat her father. Having Edyon in Calidor allowed us to see both sides of the long-distance negotiation, which was very effective.

The way the point-of-view characters have been scattered around the map is used as a very effective device to show us different parts of this large conflict. Marsh manages to place himself in the Brigantine boys brigade, giving us insight into the military forces of Brigantine and a very dramatic and exciting invasion. Similarly, Tash starts the novel in the demon world, giving us an important view of what is happening there too. As different pieces start to come together in the conflict it raises the tension having multiple angles on it.

Overall, I felt like a lot of these elements were dealt with pretty quickly. The war doesn't drag on through numberless engagements, Edyon deals with one major piece of intrigue. Everything is resolved pretty quickly in the last few chapters. Some readers might find this a little light compared to some other fantasy epics out there. But I started The Wheel of Time when I was 18 years old. 23 years later I'm still waiting for Winds of Winter. The Smoke Thieves is an exciting, low-magic, political fantasy trilogy that is highly readable, fast moving and effective.

I had really high hopes for this book but unfortunately the story dragged for me and after the wonder that was the Demon World in Book Two, I was missing the colorful characters and the unrelenting action. The book seemed rushed to me, and as if the author couldn't wait to finish the series and start something else. Despite that, I'm glad I read the complete series.

3.5 stars, this was a fairly decent ending. There were parts which annoyed me (Mostly Ambrose tbh) and parts I loved (Tash and March) but it felt like a good end and I was happy with it.

I really enjoyed book one of this series, and while book two sort of dragged on a bit, I found that it perked up in the end. Sadly, I really struggled to engage with this final book and found it a little disappointing :(

The Burning Kingdoms is the last book in The Smoke Thieves Trilogy and it’s all a bit tense.
This series started really well the first book set up an interesting world and premise with a variety of characters that helped build it and drive the plot forward and it all cumulates in this third book.
It was fine. With so many threads to pull together it felt a bit like Green had given herself too much to do in one book. A lot of the main plot points that seemed to be the most important in the first books were wrapped up extremely neatly in order to give more space to the relationship drama. The demons didn’t get much space at all considering this trilogy was about them. I’m still not entirely sure what the demons are(?🤷‍♀️) This was annoying especially since It meant Tash (who is the best character) got little to do.
It was all about Catherine and Ediyon. Catherine is terrible. I kept having to remind myself that she was only 17 to give her an excuse for her behaviour which she never gets pulled up on by anyone, everyone loves her and I don’t understand why. She drops Ambrose from a great height then basically sends him on a suicide mission then happily goes off and marries another handsome powerful man (but that’s ok because he’s crippled and she’s a saint). Green did this in her first trilogy as well. The main character flip flopping from one love to another it was less jarring her, there were sign posts through all the books that this was going to happen but Catherine is still a bitch she doesn’t give a shit about Ambrose hardly spares him a thought and he’s an absolute hero and looks fine with crimson hair to boot. So she can go on about how much she loves Tzayn but I don’t believe her because she said that about Ambrose before emotionally hamstringing him.
Edyon and March are less problematic. They are very cute but not all that interesting. This book is just about them finding their way back to each other.
The Burning Kingdoms wrap things up in a neat little bow but didn’t live up to its potential.

The Burning kingdom follows straight after where the Demon World left off. Catherine finds that she is now the Queen of Pitoria after lying about her marriage to King Tzsayn who is now left injured so she is in charge of running the country. Her army is being obliterated by an illness and so she is struggling to run the country that isn’t even her responsibility. Edyon who is now the Prince of Abask and heir to the throne of Calidor faces a huge task of gathering the local lords and making them aware of the true danger of Aloysiu’s boy army. And my dearest Ambrose has now watched his unrequited love, Catherine marry somebody else and have his brother and sister tortured in front him. Now this gang of royals and misfits must come together and figure out what they need to do to end the chaos.

This conclusion to the series is captivating and Sally Green weaves a compelling tale of love and war. Like the previous book, the burning kingdom is told from many point of views. A few of these would be Catherine, March and Edyon but the plot overall was okay. It wasn’t the best, I’m not going to lie here but I still enjoyed the series as an overall.

3 out of 5 stars.

I really don’t know how this happened. I’m just super disappointed because I really really enjoyed Smoke Thieves and I enjoyed The Demon World... but this?

Everything, literally EVERYTHING was so painfully convenient. The ending just happened so quickly, the characters I loved were just, I don’t really know.

1 Star for Tzsayn because he’s the best character and 1 star for Catherine making the right choice and being a strong female character.

This is probably one of my most disappointing reads of the year tbh which is a shame!

The Smoke Thieves was one of my surprise favourite reads of 2018. I hadn’t heard anything about it before I snagged a copy, but from the first page I was hooked. I loved everything about it, and frequently recommended it to high fantasy fans. In fact, thanks to the series’ perfect balance of political intrigue, dark magic and an intriguing ensemble cast scattered across a continent, I likened it to the glory days of Game of Thrones. The second book was just as strong, and the final book of the series, The Burning Kingdoms, became one of my most anticipated reads of 2020.

Unfortunately, like Game of Thrones, this series ends not with a bang, but with a whimper.

My main issue with The Burning Kingdoms is the writing style, which can best be described as ‘tell, don’t show’. Everything - from the pacing to the characterisation - felt flat and lifeless. Green’s characters were one of my favourite parts of the series in the first two instalments, but in The Burning Kingdoms it almost seemed like they were written by a ghostwriter with only the vaguest idea of who these characters were. Even new characters were introduced with so much detachment that I was incapable of forming any kind of opinion - good or bad - about them.

There was also no sense of urgency, even while the narrative was building up to its climax - largely, because Green revealed exactly what was going to happen several chapters before it did. It was clear to the reader that the characters, who thought they were in mortal danger, were actually all going to be fine, which meant that there were literally no stakes.

I was invested enough in the characters and their journeys to continue to the end, but I’m not sure I’ll be recommending this series anymore. A disappointing ending.

Many thanks to Penguin for providing a copy of The Burning Kingdoms. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Publisher: Penguin
Rating: 2 stars | ★★✰✰✰
Review cross-posted to Paperback'd Reviews

THE BURNING KINGDOMS is a book that summaries my feelings about the whole trilogy - this is a series with such potential to be engaging and epic and amazing, but falls rather flat in the execution.

It's a fun enough read, and I did blitz through it in a day, but I was left wanting so much more from the book (and series) by the ending. The enemy are incredibly powerful and the heroes are scatted, divided (not quite leaderless) at the start, and you know going in that this whole book is racing towards the final confrontation. It's a pretty much foregone conclusion that the heroes will win, as that's what we expect as readers, but the <em>how</em> is what we don't know - what we want to find out.

And that how needs to be rewarding. When the stakes are this large, there should be gambles and danger and the heroes acting. They should be earning their happily ever after, should be the ones who cause it to happen. It's about creating adequate payoffs that match the set up, and that never happens in this book.

The ending is rather a deus ex machina, as it's a little convenient how the army of boys are just dealt with such that the heroes don't have to do anything themselves. Instead, they are rid of their greatest threat (who they cannot beat as they are so powerful) without getting blood on their hands. It does rather ruin the tension of the situation and undermine the finale as it's not the heroes' actions that saves them the day. Their kingdoms are at risk, but the characters don't rise to meet it - instead they win by luck that the world has this get-out clause they didn't know about.

The way the information was revealed was also rather odd. Sally Green writes the character who reveals it through a character that she's made untrustworthy and who <em>feels</em> like they've got a scheme up their sleeve that they're just waiting to unleash. Tash and Ambrose clearly don't trust the character either, and so the risks they take on the characters' behalf seem a little silly when they both say they don't believe that they will get information once they fulfil the demands. And yet, when they get the information, they just take the information at face value? It so happens to be true, but it didn't match the build up of duplicity.

The prose is still very removed from the action, which is because the writing style is consistent across the trilogy. Between this and the deus ex machina, it does mean that the stakes didn't feel adequately met. There should have been a lot more tension at the end to make the finale more climactic, and so it's not a particularly satisfying last 100 pages - which is a pity as the start of the book had such potential.

There's some scheming at the start of the book, which of course got me excited. It all revolves around boats and potential aid/alliance between Calidor and Pittoria. There is so much time spent on this in Edyon and Catherine's chapters, but then it's simply forgotten in the second half. The boats play no part in the finale, and the alliance is rapidly forgotten about in favour of other plot ideas. It's another example of elements that are set up and had potential, but just weren't paid off.

The Burning Kingdom brings The Smoke Thieves to a blazing end.




Like the previous books, The Burning Kingdom is told via multiple points of view.  My favourite points of view were Catherine, March and Edyon.

Catherine Point of View as she shows that a Queen can rule and lead in a war.

March point of view as what he is doing and seeing has a greater impact on the story as a whole.

Edyon point of view because his life is very different from the previous books.

Ambrose, Tash and Harold POV are enjoyable and add to the story I just was engaged more with the others.

One of my favourite elements of The Burning Kingdom is showing strength in being different and allowing them to be their true self. It doesn't matter if your female, gay, disabled or a different race. All that matters that you do the right thing and stay loyal to your friends. 

The plot overall has moments that surprised me and other moments that didn't. But these moments made sense to the plot. I was happy with the ending, but Sally nearly gave me a heart attack. As a lot still needed to be resolved with 15% of the book left.  

The Burning Kingdom and The Smoke Thieves trilogy is a great YA fantasy where it takes the strangest group of character to stop evil. 




My Rating for The Burning Kingdom is 3.7 out of 5.

Like the previous two books in the trilogy, The Burning Kingdoms, was easy to get through with action throughout.

Catherine has been my favourite right from the start. I like how although she can't fight physically she is intelligent and has a fighting spirit. She uses her intelligence and wits to command respect. In a world where woman are treated like second class citizens she shows their true worth.

The love triangle between Catherine/Ambrose/Tzsayn was quickly resolved, but the romance between Catherine and spoiler was very lacklustre and dull, with the phrase "kissed his hand" constantly being repeated. Edyon and March's romance on the other hand was more enjoyable to read, the yearning was well crafted.

Tzsayn, I thought was an intriguing character in book one, and hoped to see more of him in book two. That didn't happen, which was disappointing, he was barely present in book two and three. This meant that we hardly got to know him. Yes, we hear about how good and kind he is, but we never actually see this except maybe in the way he acts towards Catherine.

I really felt for Ambrose, he was in pain, dealing with the loss of his family. I was rooting for him, and I admired his loyalty and determination.

Overall, a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.

Ok, so I’m sad to say this is the last book and I’m going to miss these books and characters so much. I love this series so much. I thought this was a fitting tribute to a great trilogy, it goes out with a bang and is even better than the second book. As always I love Sally’s use of multiple POV , she is so talented at them, each voice is unique and you can tell each character apart. No spoilers here, because you need to read these for yourself, but this is one of my favourite reads this year. A wonderful ending to an addictive and amazingly entertaining series. Wonderful strong kick ass women, great representation and amazing writing. If you have not read these books, why not you really need to !

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

4.5
This was much stronger than the second book, it gripped me straight away when it took me nearly halfway through The Demon World to get truly invested.
The thing that caused me a lot of annoyance in the last book was Catherine and Ambrose and while it was still there it wasn't as overwhelming plot-wise this time. Ambrose is still my least favourite character but at least he started to grow up near the end. His influence on Catherine really held her back but she gets her priorities right this time (mostly thanks to Tanya, she just might be one of my new favourites). Tzsayn is still too precious for this world, they have so much more chemistry than she does with Ambrose. I really enjoyed all the politics as well as how the characters had to overcome the various obstacles that come with war, it wasn't all about the battles but alliances, financial worries and soldier morale as well.
I was a bit disappointed that March and Edyon weren't together for much of the book but I found their separate plots interesting so I didn't mind too much. I liked Edyon's difficulty with his new life was the main plot point for him, it didn't just all fall into place for him now he is with his father. I liked that March joined up with the boy army (I couldn't read boys' brigade without sniggering, how can you take something like that seriously?). I'm a sucker for a character going behind enemy lines. The conflict he felt while getting to know the other boys and seeing the danger they and their new leader presented to his loved ones was interesting to read (though I did shout, 'just poison him' at the book a few times).
Tash is the best character in this series in my opinion, her storyline in the second book was amazing and it was one of the best parts about this one too. Though she doesn't do that much in the first part of the book due to what happened to her at the end of the last one her part is one of the most critical to the end of the conflict. Her connection to the demons and their world gets more complex (and we see Twist again! I love him). There was a character in her plotline that I felt was a bit unneeded since she seemed to only be there to give Ambrose a important bit of information that I'm pretty sure Tash could have found out from the demons in someway instead.
Overall I really enjoyed this conclusion to the trilogy, things are tried up bit too easily after so much build up in my opinion but I still felt satisfied with how everything turned out.

I received a free ARC of the book in return for an honest review. Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the opportunity.

The Smoke Thieves is a fantasy trilogy and you will need to read the first two books to make sense of this, the final book. Written from the perspectives of five characters whose lives intertwine, the point of view rotates from chapter to chapter.

Tash is a thirteen year old and has been raised as a hunter of illegal demon smoke, which can only be obtained by killing a demon. After finding her way into the demon world she feels sympathy for the demons and regrets her actions. Edyon is the illegitimate son of Prince Thelonius, ruler of Calidor. He has been on a journey to meet his father and become a legitimised heir. Edyon has a nasty habit of stealing things that gets him into trouble. March is one of the last surviving Abask people. He blames Edyon’s father for the Abask people being wiped out. He was part of a plot to kidnap Edyon and hand him over to King Aloysius, Edyon’s uncle and cruel ruler of the neighbouring country Brigant, but after developing feelings for the gentle Edyon, he changed course. Catherine is King Aloysius’ daughter, cousin to Edyon. She was sent to another neighbouring country, Pitoria, for an arranged marriage to Prince Tzsayn. This turned out to be a distraction so her father could invade part of the Pitoria that had access to the demon world. Catherine stood with Tzsayn against the Brigantines. Ambrose was Catherine’s personal guard in Brigant, now in exile in Pitoria, he is still deeply in love with Catherine.

It has been discovered that purple demon smoke harvested by killing young demons can, when inhaled, give excessive strength and stamina to young people. King Aloysius has an unit of soldiers in the demon world killing demons to farm the smoke whichhe plans to use to power an army of boys, in a plot to seize Calidor from his brother, Prince Thelonius.

As you might expect with five strong characters, I found some more likeable than others. Tash is the first character we meet in the first book and remained my firm favourite throughout. She is blunt to the point of obnoxious, and quite foul-mouthed, but her character development through the books is at times painful and emotional. In contrast Catherine, moved from being an oppressed if quietly rebellious young woman, to being a take-charge, do what has to be done character, but never really engendered much affection in me. Ambrose always seemed quite a weak character, but in this final book, his strength finally shone out. March and Edyon had a beautiful love story that won my heart.

In books with multiple points of view, it can sometimes be a problem for me distinguishing the voice of one character from another, but this was never an issue here as each character has very distinct narrative voice. I worried early on that one or more of the characters would become redundant as time went on which would have been frustrating as we get to know them so well. However, the actions of all five are essential to the plot so no character fades out before the end.


I felt by the end of the book that this world still had more tales to tell. I still had questions about the Edyon/March relationship and the minor character Prince Tzsayn remained a favourite of mine who deserved a story of his own.

It seemed to me, quite ambitious at the start to have five full points of view but Green has achieved it admirably. I was invested in the story from first to last and would happily welcome more from this world. The audible versions are also excellent with full cast performance.

If you haven’t read the early books you should grab them now. If you have, the final book will keep you on edge almost to the final page.

For a moment there I thought Sally was going to kill everyone and leave Ambrose all alone, thank heavens for good timing!
I have enjoyed this whole series, especially the way so many characters lives, seemingly separate, were woven together so beautifully. I also really liked that the demonic characters were not the mindless evil they were originally shown to be, but the victims. Sally’s plot twist in this conclusion was brilliant, could easily recommend this series to any teen.

I’ve been up and down with this trilogy. Part of it is me falling just outside the target audience, I think, but I just haven’t formed lasting bonds with the characters. Objectively this was a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, especially after the last book which ended in a way that didn’t sit well with me. The threads are all tied off and the major plot is nicely rounded out. If you’re more in the audience for this one than I am, you’ll probably love this one.

First of all, thank you so much Penguin Books and PuffinBooks for providing an e-copy of this book.

It’s always a bittersweet feeling when one of your favourite series is over. This book was definitely my most awaited release of this year. I picked up The Smoke Thieves by chance and I didn’t know I would be this blown away by this story. The ending did not disappoint me.

The characters created by Sally Green will creep inside your heart and they will never leave you. I have no other way to express how much I loved these characters. I can’t say too much about any of the characters, because I don’t want to spoil the ending with this review. However, it was an amazing reading experience to see how Catherine’s character grew up to become an inspiring leader and queen, and I was completely satisfied with her ending. I am sure many will disagree with me, but her choices demonstrated real maturity. It was a perfect ending to a brilliant plot, everything came together gradually and I am so glad we got an even more satisfying epilogue. I will miss March and Edyon so much!!

I can’t recommend this trilogy enough! You got badass women, love triangles and heartbreaking LGBT characters.