Smoke in the Sun by Renee Ahdieh

Right.

So here's how it's going to have to go. It's just going to be, every Sunday, however far I've gotten in the chosen book, that's how far we are. Because three chapters a week is killing me slow, but some books that I have lined up are probably going to take me more than a week to read. And that's not even factoring in that some weeks I have less time to read than others.

There is no plan, we're just winging it!!!

Last week, I read Smoke in the Sun, by Renee Ahdieh. It's a YA book, and the second in a duology. I'd read the first one some time ago - I actually have three autographed books by this author, I got to meet her when I went to the RT convention back in 2017 with Texas Heather. :)

The first series by Ms. Ahdieh is sort of a retelling of the whole, 1,001 Nights conceit, which, I think everyone knows? But if you don't the whole idea is that there is this king and his wife betrays him. So in order to keep that from happening again, he marries a new wife every night and then executes her in the morning. And while this has SO MANY logical flaws, not the least of which is that you are definitely setting yourself up to get assassinated if you just keep murdering women left right and center, but that's not the point. A noble-woman named Scheherazade is next up and she's like, 'Okay, I get it, fine. But before we get to the wedding night and the executing and all could I please tell my little sister a bed time story?' and the king, WHILE A MONSTER, is not a monster and lets her tell her little sister the story and of course he gets into it and Scheherazade stops right in the middle so he's just...fine. You can live to finish the story tomorrow night!

And this goes on for a LONG time until he falls in love and stops planning to murder her.

So the first duology is The Wrath & the Dawn, and then The Rose & The Dagger and it's that general idea, but there's curse and yada yada. They're very good books, especially if you like romance and fantasy. They are YA, so there's no graphic sex or violence 'on screen' as it were.

Right.

So, this pair of books is set in....Asia. Maybe Japan? It's fantasy fiction so maybe not super important but I'm pretty sure it's meant to be Japan.

The first book, Flame in the Mist, is definitely necessary to know what the hell is going on in this one. I'm not going to go through the whole thing, but basically we start with a young boy watching his father be executed for betraying the emperor, and you know that'll be important, but then we jump ahead in time and we're with Mariko, the only daughter of a powerful daimyo who is on her way to the capital to marry the illegitimate son of the emperor. Or. I mean he's acknowledged, and he's the oldest, but he's the son of one of the emperor's mistresses, so he's not in line to the throne. Raiden, is his name and he's a big bully. His younger brother Roku (which is the name of my tv streaming box and I giggled the first couple of times I read it) is in line, since his mother is the empress.

So. Mariko is on her way to a life of luxurious captivity and she's not thrilled, but the honor of her family, etc. etc. And, of course, her caravan is attacked on the way to the capital and everyone is killed, including the maid that is riding in the little 'girls only' thingy. Mariko is the only survivor, and she winds up lost in the woods and has to kill a man to save herself - he deserves it, trust me. She believes, based on what happened, that the Black Clan (they be ninjas) attacked her and murdered these people that she knew and loved in some cases. So her plan is to infiltrate the ninjas and find out why and also get revenge.

And this goes swimmingly.

It does not go swimmingly.

However, through much trial, she winds up living with the ninjas and becomes 'one of them' while also disguised as a boy and having a sort of romance with the second in command of the Black Clan who *SPOILERS* turns out to be the actual leader and the kid from the beginning of the book and he's the son of the last shogun who was betrayed by his friend who was then killed by the emperor who hey, is a bag of dicks.

*waves hands*

Basically, we go through so many things and we wind up with Kenshin, Mariko's twin brother, on the side of the emperor and his beloved Amaya believed to be dead but she's not really dead because Kanako (Raiden's mother) has her magicked into a tree (she's inside the tree, not turned into a tree) and Mariko is in the hands of the emperor's forces, and they're the bad guys (not the ninjas) and Okami (shogun's son, leader of the ninjas) captured - also, hey, he maybe sold himself to a demon so he can turn into smoke and his best friend Asano Tsuneoki ALSO sold (maybe his soul? not clear) so he could be a night beast which is like...half bear half wolf? and all magical badass and Mariko is pretending to be on the side of the empire in order to find out who tried to kill her and also to save Okami.

AND.

The empress poisons her husband and puts Roku on the throne.

Whee.

Smoke in the Sun.

Right.

Mariko has to work the palace intrigue, which is tough, these people are mostly horrible. But she also gets to use her alchemical knowledge (she's smart, of course, but not allowed to use her brains in the society she lives in) and her ninja skills to try and save Okami.

Who is being tortured down in the dungeon by Roku who, apparently, takes after his father and is a monster. He really is.

Like, for example, he definitely enjoys torturing people. A lot. A lot.

And his father murdered and betrayed friends and family in order to solidify his empire. Which, is how empires are made, but still makes him a horrible person. Who died SO BADLY.

Mariko is in this weird, trusted but not position. On the one hand, her family is still rich and powerful and loyal to the emperor and she (as far as anyone knows) was a victim of the Black Clan and their vendetta against the emperor. On the other hand, she's a young girl whose 'worth' is in her virginity to a great degree and she's been living in the woods with a bunch of men for months.

However, everyone agrees to the same lie, that Mariko was just a captive.

Because it would be SUPER awkward to admit that she and Okami were in love. And also that she'd gotten rid of her virginity WAY before that in an act of rebellion.

There's a lot of intrigue and backstabbing and magical goings on.

Kanako (Raiden's mother) is....I'm torn.

On the one hand, she does some bad, BAD stuff. She murders people with magic, takes over other peoples' minds to make *them* commit murder. She causes the death of this innocent kid and she's causing so much chaos and destruction to get her son on the throne.

She 100% murders the empress, which I'm torn on. Not because she didn't deserve to die, because she kind of did, but Kanako's reasoning is a little off to me. She talks about how the Emperor was weak willed, and horrible, and blah, blah, but then she avenges him by killing the empress? Fair, she did poison him, and she needed to get killed, but just admit that she's in your way, Kanako!

Also, Kanako is sort of a support to Mariko? And it turns out that she raised a much less insane son.

Raiden is...not the nicest person out there, but he's also not a monster. Once he and Roku start pulling apart, you can see that Raiden is the better of the two.

Anyway.

Mariko manages to get herself married to Raiden, though they never consummate the marriage. And Raiden starts proving he's Not the Worst in good part when he protects Mariko from his brother who is the literal worst, and also lies to his brother about Mariko being a virgin. Which he doesn't have a damn clue about, because again, they did not have sex. There's an assassination attempt on Roku at the wedding, and Okami finally escapes, ninja clan to the rescue, thanks to Mariko's plan, and Okami makes it out of the city which is then surrounded by...kind of zombies?

Kanako has just been attacking towns and mind controlling the people. So they're not *zombies* but they're also not really all there.

Anyway.

Turns out Okami is maybe part dragon?

This is one of the things that sort of threw me.

Like, okay.

His mother might have been a dragon.

Was probably a dragon.

BUT I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!!

As in, then where they hell did her family lands come from?

Why did she just NOPE back into the ocean at one point and never come back?

What does this mean for the deal that Okami made with a demon?

Can he turn into a dragon?

Was his fathers family also related to a phoenix?

There's a sword, it's a whole thing. I cannot say that it actually comes into play. Because it DOESN'T.

Did his dad know he was married to a DRAGON?

Honestly, the book is the book and I enjoyed it a lot.

But there's no surprises in it.

End of the day, Mariko and Okami are going to wind up together.

Tsuneoki winds up with no one because he's in love with Okami and just...exists. He was not given enough of an ending, dammit.

Roku winds up dead, because Raiden is done with his shit and realizes that his brother is a MONSTER.

Kanako also dies, in order to undo all the bad magic she's got flying around. She takes herself out, because magic has a price and she's too weak to stop it any other way. Still not sure how I feel about her.

Kenshin gets Amaya back? Maybe? I mean the magic keeping her secret hidden in the tree dies with Kanako, so maybe? I know she gets out of the three. Don't know if she winds up with Kenshin.

And Okami gets his fathers shogunate back.

BUT I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!

Like, DRAGON.

Like, as I understand it, Okami's deal with the demon means he can't ever have children, can't leave a legacy in the world. Which maybe isn't a problem, maybe he and Mariko don't care about that.

Look, most of my questions revolve around why would you tell me he's MAYBE PART DRAGON and then have it MEAN NOTHING!!!!

*sigh*

Maybe there are short stories out there that get more into it? But that annoys me. You can either throw in that HE'S A DRAGON and use it or leave it the fuck out.

And Tsuneoki deserves better.

*grumbles*

Dude is part dragon and it just means nothing, lets not do anything with it, why bother....