Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor
Reviewed 5th June, 2012

I’m not entirely sure what hooked me about this book. I just know that I picked it up intending to read a couple of pages, and put it down a hundred pages later feeling dazed — and had that same experience every time I picked it up to read it. Laini Taylor’s writing is good, with only a few points that struck me as missteps — the reveal of a certain character’s history being one of them; it felt wrongly placed in the narrative somehow — and a sense of humour, a good eye for the right details to include, and with an excellent pace.

It’s technically part of the whole trend of paranormal romances, with ‘angels’ and ‘demons’, but Laini Taylor doesn’t take the existing mythology and stick to it. Her worldbuilding is quite inventive. I loved the characters, too, particularly Brimstone: unsettling, fascinating, and comforting, all in one.

One of the plot-twists was obvious to me, but the reveal at the end took me a little bit by surprise. I’m looking forward to the next book, to see how everything is going to be resolved. And fingers crossed for more about the chimaera we come to know and love…

Rating: 5/5