Karou has blue hair, a sketchbook full of monsters, and a life she doesn't fully understand. The teeth her chimaera family collects are currency in a world she's never seen. Until she does.
About This Book
A blue-haired art student living in Prague leads a secret double life running mysterious errands for the horned, part-animal creature who raised her, collecting teeth from around the world for purposes she does not understand, until a scorched handprint begins appearing on doorways worldwide and a beautiful, vengeful angel crosses her path, unlocking the truth about who and what she really is, and a war between two ancient races that reaches back before her birth. Taylor writes lush, imaginative young adult fantasy in gorgeous, sensory prose, blending a vividly rendered Prague with an otherworldly mythology of chimaera and seraphim locked in eternal conflict, and unfolding a sweeping, star-crossed romance and a mystery of hidden identity across both worlds. The atmosphere is rich, the worldbuilding original, the pace building from urban fantasy toward epic scope. This suits readers who want atmospheric, beautifully written young adult fantasy with a distinctive heroine, an inventive mythology, and a doomed, epic romance, and who savor lyrical prose. It fits less well anyone wanting fast action or spare writing, since the book luxuriates in atmosphere and mythology. The detail that the heroine collects teeth for the monstrous family that raised her, without knowing why, gives the book its intriguing central mystery. Lush, imaginative, and romantic, it rewards readers who love atmospheric fantasy. Those wanting brevity may find it ornate, but its world and its romance are exactly what make it so beloved.
Who This Is For
Best for readers who want to be immersed in a world: mood and setting as important as plot. The writing rewards attention without being demanding, a good balance of depth and readability. The pacing is balanced, time to breathe between moments that matter. Plot-first readers may find the pace too slow and the ambiguity too deliberate.
Best Read When
Best read when you're in the mood for something atmospheric and mysterious, and a read that's balanced and absorbing.
What It Explores
Daughter of Smoke and Bone explores love in its most complicated forms, identity and the gap between who we are and who we pretend to be, and survival and what extreme circumstances ask of people.
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