The word “fantasy” always conjures up for me something fairy like or Disney-esque,  so I have always hated using that term to describe books like Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, where although it is not located in our world, it is grounded in a hard, gritty reality where good and evil are at war.  Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Taylor is another such book, where good and evil collide and as a result love, life and reality are suddenly not all that seemed to be. (Not really the stuff of fantasy if you ask me!)

Set in Prague in the present day, we meet Karou a young art student who along with all the usual teen age angst about who she is and what she will become carries some added secrets, like the fact that her gorgeous blue hair is not died but grows that way naturally!  As we get to know Karou we find that her family consists of chimera and that she often goes on expeditions to find teeth for her guardian, a chimera named Brimstone. Karou loves her life as an art student and has made a great friend in Zuzana, but there is something missing, and Karou always feels like she has forgotten something important or that her life is not all that it seems.

Periodically Karou is asked by Brimstone to go on expeditions to find particular items, mainly teeth, for his highly secretive work, but she never can seem to find out what they are for and why these expeditions are so important to Brimstone’s work.  Then on one of her errands she unexpectedly encounters an angel named Akiva and is drawn to him as he is to her. But even though their love begins to grow, the world as she knows it begins to shift and crumble and she must confront the reality of who she is along with the painful knowledge that in this world, angels and chimera have been at war for so long that the reasons are long forgotten and only hatred remains.

Taylor’s descriptions are lush and vivid. She creates this world of angels and chimera with authority and as a result you are drawn into it. Karou’s friendship with Zuzana is a strong thread in this story and at least initially it is through that friendship that we learn to care about Karou.  Taylor is especially adept at making their conversation sound like typical teenagers-full of snarky and pithy comments and made it fun to read.

Brenda’s Rating: ****(Four Stars out of Five)

Recommend this Book to: Lauren, Sharon and Marian.

Book Study Worthy: Not really.

Read in ebook format.

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