Smoke in the Sun (Flame in the Mist, #2)

by Renée Ahdieh

Nancy Wu (Narrator)

After Okami is captured in the Jukai forest, Mariko has no choice--to rescue him, she must return to Inako and face the dangers that have been waiting for her in the Heian Castle. She tricks her brother, Kenshin, and betrothed, Raiden, into thinking she was being held by the Black Clan against her will, playing the part of the dutiful bride-to-be to infiltrate the emperor's ranks and uncover the truth behind the betrayal that almost left her dead. With the wedding plans already underway, Mariko pretends to be consumed with her upcoming nuptials, all the while using her royal standing to peel back the layers of lies and deception surrounding the imperial court. But each secret she unfurls gives way to the next, ensnaring Mariko and Okami in a political scheme that threatens their honor, their love and very the safety of the empire.

• ISBN10: 0525625666
• ISBN13: 9780525625667
• Publish Date: 5 June 2018
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Imprint: Listening Library
• Edition: Bot Exclusive ed.
• Format: Audiobook (CD)
• Duration: 11 hours and 59 minutes
• Language: English

Reviews

[Kim Deister]

This was equally as beautiful a novel as the first book in the duology, Flame in the Mist. The lush descriptions of the setting, a fantasyesque feudal Japan, are absolutely stunning. The world of these stories becomes real and visual, a magical air lent to each scene, even when that scene is perfectly mundane.

Smoke in the Sun contains less romance than the first book, which feels appropriate for the plot of this novel. The relationship between Mariko and Okami was well established in Flame in the Mist, allowing this book to focus more on the intrigue and action. In this one, Mariko is in the castle, playing the part of a dutiful bride to the sovereign’s brother, Raiden, even as she tries to find away to free Okami and help the Black Clan. Her place is tenuous at best, as she navigates two worlds she inhabits, made all the more dangerous by Emperor Roku. who is becoming ever more violent and unhinged every day.

The perspectives often included those of secondary characters, which I really enjoyed as it created depth and layers to the story. At times, those secondary characters were more engaging than the primary two, showing that those who first to appear to be the villains later are shown to be far more complex than that.

One of the things I love most about this duology is the way female and male power is played out. It is the men who openly battle for supremacy, but it is the strong women behind the scenes that make the difference.

Why is everything suddenly solved? ... ugh
No consistent characters and the ending is not realistic in my opinion.

[alindstadtcorbeax]

Star Rating: —> 5 Stars

Um. If the first book had me SHOOK, this rendered me GDSHOOKETH.

RTC

buddy read with Darce my OTP BUDDY READING BESTIE!

[jeannamichel]

4.5 stars! Dare I say, I liked this a little more than Flame in the Mist. I flew through it! As always, Ahdieh's writing is so fantastic- I will read any and everything she writes. As much as I loved the disguised as a man trope in Flame in the Mist, I think we got a bit more romance in this one and a lot more development between the characters which was stunning to see on the page. Mariko is one of most clever characters ever and being able to witness her brain in action was so cool! The plans she came up with were so calculating and thought-out. Smoke in the Sun was such a great conclusion to the duology!

[Bianca]

If you allow a monster to destroy everything in its path, then you are no better than the monster.

— So good. Mind games, scheming characters + some magic all rolled into a thrilling plot. Mostly I really loved the smart and strong-willed female characters, villainous or not.

[liz089]

I really love Renee Ahdieh, her stories are amazing and she has a beautiful writingstyle. This was no exception to that, the plot was very intruiging and I loved Mariko and the others. Raiden really grew on me and Yumi is just kick-ass ! So many great characters... I'm sad it is over. Can't we get a spin-off ? I am very curious what she is coming with next !!

[emruth13]

I liked this book. I did kind of feel like the ending was a bit rushed because when I had about 20 pages left, I'm going, "This is the last book, right? How does everything get wrapped up?" However it was done in a way that didn't bother me a lot and I am ultimately satisfied with the ending.

[sa090]

Out of all the authors I’ve ever read a book by, Reneé Ahdieh has got to be the one who gave me the weirdest experience.

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When I was reading book one, I enjoyed the first half of the book but I didn’t enjoy the second one all that much. In book two, I had the exact opposite experience of that. It took me six days to get to 50% of it, but only a few hours to get through the final 50%. All in all, I’ll say that I’m more disappointed than not with this book because it might’ve been way more interesting if it focused on the intriguing magic it showed snippets of in the prequel instead of focusing on useless things. In Smoke in the Sun, Reneé Ahdieh combined the usual build up second book of trilogies with the third wrapping up book in a single one which is not a bad idea at all, but it still makes me wish that she focused on the things that made this book interesting.

The plot is building up to the conclusion in the first half, but there are a little too many POVs for my taste being showcased throughout of it. While a couple of them were interesting, the majority were unfortunately pretty annoying for me. Mariko for instance didn’t change at all from book 1, she still ended up learning the same exact lesson from the first book, showing us a deeper look into the castle and the proceedings, still continued trying to use her mind to get out of sticky situations with little to no success and not to forget that she was still stuck in the stupid romance that happened in Book 1, which still doesn’t make a shred of sense to me. Okami is probably one of the most pathetic characters I’ve ever had the displeasure of seeing, I hate when a lot of hope is riding on someone who doesn’t deserve it, who doesn’t aim to make something of it despite the power to do so and more importantly, someone who needs to be pushed to take a stand when there is another who is way more deserving of it just a step away.

Yumi and Kanako were easily the most interesting characters in the series for me and I desperately wanted to learn more about their side of things than not, but that obviously never happened. Now the second half of the book with all of these characters was far more engaging than the first half, for wrapping the story on one hand, but for also showing me that all of that build up will eventually lead to something on the other. The annoying thing here though is that not every single recurring character had a showcased conclusion which makes it a pointless open end to add to a duology that already ended imo, I mean the actual ending of the series could be seen from a mile away about 5 chapters in the book, but still, I hoped for a more close ended conclusion than not.

The writing of the book still felt like it was as if a bunch of philosophers were trading their views on the topic at hand, but other than that I have no issues with the writing. Tbh, her description of the setting and the addition of the Japanese words when needed was one of the only pluses this book got from me throughout my reading. I appreciate the way she went about this with the language, but honestly the way she fused the romance in this book makes it a very tiring one to get through without rolling and sighing every five seconds. I get the fact that this is a YA, but this level of devotion after a couple of months is just a load of bs when those 2 months were mostly spent hating each other. But as always, I’m most likely in the minority with this one.

With this I’m done with the book and the series, there are actually two novellas in between the books that I read, but I don’t really see a reason to include my thoughts in bigger details when they felt more pointless than anything else. Would I ever read another of her series at some point? I’m honestly not sure in the long run, but at the moment I’d like to focus on others I’m most likely going to enjoy more.

Final rating: 2/5

[nightingalereads]

3.75 stars

Once again, Renee Ahdieh totally stole my heart with Smoke in the Sun. I love that we got to see more of Tsuneoki in this sequel, since he was one of my favorite characters in Flame in the Mist. I think I loved Okami even more in this installment (if that's even possible), and I was backing Mariko 100% throughout the entire novel. Her relationship with Prince Raiden in particular kept me on the edge of my seat. This book also confirmed how seriously messed up Roku is. He's beyond twisted, and the way Renee wrote him was so beautiful and eerie that he really gave me the creeps. My only qualm with Smoke in the Sun is that the ending wrapped up a little too quickly. Honestly, I think this series could've easily been a trilogy. A third book would've allowed the plot to breathe a bit, and would've given us more time to explore the characters, who I feel like we were just getting attached to.