Book Synopsis:
Welcome to a world where every desire is visible, rising from the body as a plume of Smoke. A world where bodies speak to one another and infect each other with desire, anger, greed. It is 1909 and this world stands on a precipice – some celebrate this constant whisper of skin to skin, and some seek to silence it forever.
Enter Eleanor, a young woman with a strange power over Smoke and niece of the Lord Protector of England. Running from her uncle and home, she finds shelter in a New York theatre troupe.
Then Nil, a thief hiding behind a self-effacing name. He’s an orphan snatched from a jungle-home and suspects that a clue to his origins may lie hidden in the vaults of the mighty, newly-risen East India Company.
And finally Thomas, one of the three people to release Smoke into the world. On a clandestine mission to India, he hopes to uncover the origins of Smoke and lay to rest his doubts about what he helped to unleash.
In a story that crosses continents – from India to England’s Minetowns – these three seek to control the power of Smoke. As their destinies entwine, a cataclysmic confrontation looms: the Smoke will either bind them together or forever tend the world.
Soot is published on the 27th November 2020 in ebook and hardback. You can pre-order your copy using the link below.
My Review:
Soot is a highly imaginative, immersive book which was very thought provoking and is definitely a story that will stay with me.
The world that the author has created is an absolutely fascinating one and I thought the idea of people’s emotions being visible in smoke form was a very interesting one. Like the characters in the book I was divided as to whether I’d like this to happen in real life. Some emotions being visible would probably be helpful where others would perhaps be embarrassing as the author explores. Some parts of the book seemed familiar to me as there are definitely some similarities with the Victorian era as it has the same dark feel to it.
There are lots of different plots running alongside each other which were interesting to follow and I enjoyed watching them all slowly merge together. This is quite a long book which might put some readers off but I felt that this was great for the story as it allowed me to become fully absorbed into the world and the characters lives. The ending was interesting and the way it is left makes me think that there might be another book set in this world.
Huge thanks to Tracy Fenton for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Will from W&N books for my copy of this book.
About The Author:
Dan Vyleta is the son of Czech refugees who emigrated to Germany in the late 1960s. After growing up in Germany, he left to attend university in the UK where he completed a PhD in History at King’s College, Cambridge. His debut novel, Pavel & I, gathered immediate international acclaim and was translated into eight languages. His second novel, The Quiet Twin, was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and his third, The Crooked Maid, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the J.I Segal Award. When not reading or writing novels, Dan Vyleta watches cop shows, or listens to CDs from his embarrassingly large collection of jazz albums. He lives in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Over The Rainbow Blog 
Great review, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I struggled with it, but I loved the idea behind it all, I think I would have been better starting with book 1.
LikeLike