Item: Daughter of Smoke & Bone
Rating: 5.00
Author: writehollydavis

by Laini Taylor

Errand requiring immediate attention. Come.

The note was on vellum, pierced by the talons of the almost-crow that delivered it. Karou read the message. 'He never says please', she sighed, but she gathered up her things.

When Brimstone called, she always came.

In general, Karou has managed to keep her two lives in balance. On the one hand, she's a seventeen-year-old art student in Prague; on the other, errand-girl to a monstrous creature who is the closest thing she has to family. Raised half in our world, half in 'Elsewhere', she has never understood Brimstone's dark work - buying teeth from hunters and murderers - nor how she came into his keeping. She is a secret even to herself, plagued by the sensation that she isn't whole.

Now the doors to Elsewhere are closing, and Karou must choose between the safety of her human life and the dangers of a war-ravaged world that may hold the answers she has always sought.

I heard Laini Taylor's writing was beautiful, but I wasn't expecting her prose to take my breath away! Her writing is the perfect amount of descriptive, is beautiful without being purple prose or too flowery, and immerses you in the moment with all five senses. I love how feisty Kaoru is, her best friend Zuzana, and of course, the mysterious but charming Akiva.

I love how Laini built up the tension behind Brimstone and the bones in the beginning and finally giving us all the answers in the end. I was afraid of an instalove story for a moment there but then Laini relayed my fears.

I felt the shift in spunk, action, and mystery in the first half to answering all our questions and tons of romance in the second half a little jarring, but I was so immersed in the plot that I enjoyed it all.

Can't wait to dive into book 2!!

Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1)

by Laini Taylor

Reviewed by writehollydavis on Aug 11, 2018

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