A captivating world of monsters and magic from the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Paper Magician Series.
As a human vessel for an ancient spirit, Sandis lives no ordinary life. At the command of her master, she can be transformed against her will into his weapon—a raging monster summoned to do his bidding. Unlike other vessels, Sandis can host extremely powerful spirits, but … powerful spirits, but hosting such creatures can be fatal. To stay alive, she must run. And in a city fueled by smoke and corruption, she finds a surprising ally.
A cunning thief for hire, Rone owns a rare device that grants him immortality for one minute every day—a unique advantage that will come in handy in Sandis’s fight for freedom. But Sandis’s master knows how powerful she is. He’s determined to get her back, and he has the manpower to find her, wherever she runs.
Now, to outwit her pursuers, Sandis must put all her trust in Rone and his immortal device. For her master has summoned more than mere men to hunt her down…
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A gripping adventure that keeps your heart racing from the first page to the last!
More of a Great Journey than a wild ride.
If you like this Author, you’ll like this book. I give it a strong C rating. First it is not the Magician series, it’s a darker world. Second the Author opens in the middle of the action, introducing charaters, monsters, and the likes on the run; then give explanation of what and who they are. Third (spoiler) it’s a cliffhanger until the next book. All that said, I enjoyed listening to the book and really want to see how things turn out for Rone and Sandis. She wants to find family and home. He wants to help her.
Easily the best of hers I’ve read, really eager to read the next. The characters are a little flat but it’s understandable in the world/roles they’re in! Exciting adventure/thriller with a deeply weird magic system. Reminded me a lot of Fallen London (online rpg) in some ways.
I enjoyed the Numina trilogy starting with “Smoke and Summons.” It was unique, fast-paced, and very entertaining.
Darker than her “Magician” series, this new series is every bit as enjoyable.
The first quarter is very good – I enjoyed the writing style and the character development, I found the premise to be extremely exciting, and settled down for a thrilling read. But I was to be sadly disappointed – because it didn’t continue. Instead, it became too repetitive, annoying and boring. Rone and Sandis just kept running away from everything, which seemed bizarre as she was a powerful vessel.
Nevertheless, they ended up going round in circles for most of the book – trying to outwit her previous captors. The clever prose became littered with simile after simile – and then the story became too confusing to follow easily – but perhaps I had slowly lost interest.
Very disappointing but two stars for the first quarter.
In the past, I was doing star ratings for books. I don’t want to do that anymore because I don’t know how to use them properly, so I’m going to use this space to simply talk about my thoughts and feelings. I’m also going to try to be better about it because I tend not to write these things down after I finish a book. Then my brain gets all foggy on the details and I end up not doing it at all!
Okay, Charlie N. Holmberg. I’ve read all of her books except for Veins of Gold. Oh, and the Plastic Magician–which I just bought. Anyway, as you might expect, that means I like her books quite a lot!
Charlie has an almost cozy way of writing fantasy. It’s a good time, but that’s actually where Smoke and Summons differs the most from her other books. Smoke and Summons is rather dark. It’s about demons. Sandis, the female main character, is literally a vessel for them. She’s bound to a fire horse of hell, basically, and can even communicate with him. It shouldn’t be possible, but there we have it. She’s special.
Then there’s Rone, our male main character, and his magical device that makes him immortal for one minute in a 24 hour period. If this doesn’t sound like the making of an on-the-go adventure, then I don’t know what does. That’s exactly what it is, too.
Sandis escapes her master, runs into Rone, and then they’re on the run for most of the book. There are high stakes, intense scenes, betrayal, an interesting and engaging fantasy world, and a romance. If any of those things sound like your cup of tea, you might want to check this one out.
It ends on a cliffhanger that has me chomping at the bit for the next book.
I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review. I love this author and read everything that she puts out there, so when I heard there was going to be another series I was so excited. I’m so glad that I was able to read this book and experience a new world of Ms. Holmberg’s creation because let me tell you when she created a world, it’s all-in- composing. The magic, the religion, the history of this world, it’s all there. At first, it’s a lot to take in but once the story gets going the plot pulls you in. I can’t wait to see where she takes us next
I have read Holmberg’s Paper Magician series and gave this a try. It really pulled me in and I read it in two days. It isn’t like her other series, there are however grafters in this story. How they are made and what they really do is a little confusing, as are some other things about the characters and world. Humans can be used as vessels to demons from the ethereal world, controlled by a summoner.
Sandis is portrayed as being naive and I’m not sure why. She wasn’t kidnapped until she was around fourteen, so she should have more street smarts than she does. She also grew up poor and was on her own raising her brother at an even younger age. She is now a vessel.
Rone is an interesting hero. He does have street smarts, even though it sounds like he grew up with money and an education until he was thirteen. He is about six years older than Sandis is though. I liked their chemistry and watching them open up to each other, a first for both of them.
The very first chapter has a lot crammed into it as the world is introduced and might be a little hard to understand. There is a lot of action (mostly running and fighting) and the romance is very mild. I enjoyed the fast pace.
There is moderate amount of language, unfortunately. Rone has quite the mouth on him. There is also sexual and raping comments along with a man grabbing her breast. Violence is very heavy and there’s dark magic. I would put this as an older teenage and up age group.
Thanks for 49North and NetGallery for a free ARC.
Really interesting concept and enjoyable characters. Like their story and can’t wait for more of their adventures.