Today I am the last stop on the #blogtour for SOOT by Dan Vyleta.
And isn’t’ that cover something special?
Soot is the second book in the Smoke series.
Book Blurb
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 rend the world.
The blurb sounds great, right!?!
And totally different to everything I have come across this year so far…
I have a wee bit of extra content and an extract from the book – entitled Postcards from the world of SOOT, all provided by Dan Vyleta.
The Beetle
Black, fist-sized, adorned by yellow fur, the beetle is like something that has crossed from the world of dreams into the real world. Mowgli sees it and recognises that it comes from his home. And yet something strange clings to it, something uncanny.
Think it is impossible to fall in love with an insect? Think again.
In the words of Soot:
And next to her, as though cause and object of her sternness, there rises a glass casement, lead-bottomed and nearly a foot in height. Inside resides a beetle on a spit. A nail really, seven inches long and slender, entering the beetle’s body at its sloping bottom, where winged back meets segmented belly, and emerging on the far side in between mandibles long and spiky like a crown of thorns. But what a beetle! Palm-sized, spread-winged, horned legs splayed and resting on the walls of its glass cage. Armoured in dull black.
I haven’t read SOOT yet, I signed up for the tour before I realised that SOOT was the second book in the series, and I struggled. I was confused. Not because of the book itself or the writing, but because this isn’t a standalone. I was lost in a world I didn’t quite understand. So, I decided to go back to the beginning and I will start with Smoke in the (hopefully) near future.
From the first 100 pages I read it was evident that Dan Vyleta has a wonderful, descriptive and beautifully flowing style of writing. I am very much looking forward to delving into the world of SMOKE.
Have you read SMOKE? Is this a series you want to read?
One More Word 
The premise of this book is definitely intriguing but I can see what you mean, reading the first book in the series would definitely be an advantage to understand such a different and complex world.
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Exactly! Thank you for taking the time to read and comment 🙂
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