Bright Smoke, Cold Fire: A Young Adult Dark Romance and Fantasy Retelling of Romeo and Juliet

“She slides her fingers into his dark hair and kisses him, kisses her dearest sin, again and again. Her heart pounds with the desire to kill him, to wreck and ruin and revenge, but she only clutches him closer, kisses him more fiercely, and his arms wrap around her as he kisses her back. She will not be the one who kills him. She will give everything else to her family, to her duty, to the adjuration written on her skin. But she will not give them this.” There has also been something moving to me about the tale of Romeo and Juliet. I get that it can be a controversial story, but I still always felt so drawn to the drama, the passion, the poetry of the story. Well Rosamund Hodge took this classic love and twisted it in a fantastic way. In this version Juliet is a roll to be played by a female who can serve as the warrior and savior of her clan. The story is filled with characters who all are learning that their world may be a lie. The book contains magic, mystery, necromancy, and revenants. And its all done in a fun and beautiful way. The book ended with a lot up in the air, but she sort of wrapped it up with a poetical seen so I can overlook it. Also knowing that I have the sequel on preorder helps. All that being said this book is really very well done and I give it 4.5 stars.

The first half of a duology retelling Romeo & Juliet in a city simmering not only with feuding clans but in danger of invasion by the unquiet dead, Bright Smoke, Cold Fire has an interesting take on its source material, taking Romeo & Juliet not primarily as a love story but as a story of warring clans in a world out of joint. I'm not a big fan of Romeo & Juliet, nor always of YA, but this was a fascinating and evocative read that has me eager for the second half.

**Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy** Romeo and Juliet has never been my favorite. It's like teenage angst at its best, something which I'm not generally a fan of. BRIGHT SMOKE, COLD FIRE at least didn't have nearly as much angst as Romeo and Juliet, but it also wasn't an amazing story either. Hodge seemed to bite off a little more than she could chew, and the result was a scatterbrained story with zombies, magic, and tons of weird stuff going on. I'm not 100% sure how to explain anything that happens in BRIGHT SMOKE, COLD FIRE without ruining it for a reader who might enjoy it. But I will say that it's just too much - there's too much of everything. The zombie storyline would have been fine by itself, but then Hodge threw in ghosts, and magic, and a bit of a dystopian society, and it all started to become too much. Romeo and Juliet and Zombies, as I've heard this book referred to in other reviews, doesn't really explain what goes on, because for the most part, the story takes place after Romeo and Juliet are separated, and the zombies unfortunately don't play that large a role. (This is saying something, because I'm not usually a fan of creatures that are like zombies.) Some of the characters drove me nuts. Like Romeo, who was alternatively heartsick and practical - dude, make up your mind. I rather loved Mahyanai's one mindedness toward her plan - getting into the library beneath her convent, but that started to get old, and she wasn't part of the original Romeo and Juliet story to begin with, so I spent a lot of time trying to puzzle out who she would have been. At the end of the day, there weren't tons of likable characters. Even the secondary characters spent a lot of time just being pure evil or out to get one of the heroes or heroines. (I did like Vai a LOT though - if you read it, you'll see what I mean.) Overall, BRIGHT SMOKE, COLD FIRE, was a disappointment to this huge Rosamund Hodge fan. Having loved her two previous books, I had much higher expectations for BRIGHT SMOKE, COLD FIRE, and this just didn't do it for me. I might stick around for book two, to see what happens, but it won't make my "most anticipated" list.

This was definitely not what I had expected... But it was good and I can’t wait for the next one. The characters were great.

Just as beautifully written as the rest of the Cruel Beauty series, a unique take on the romeo and Juliet story. Heavy themes of what awaits in the afterlife, as well as love and sacrifice.

I wanted so so much to like Bright Smoke, Cold Fire with the same fiery passion as I liked Crimson Bound. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out for me. Bright Smoke, Cold Fire has the feeling of a book that wants to do too many things. There are two POVs in this one – Runajo and Paris, and both are trying to accomplish the same thing – save the city. In one POV, we learn about the inside of the religious order of the city – in the other, the reader experiences the correct underground. Either view could have been interesting enough in itself, but they cancel each other out. Because the reader is looking at two different worlds inside an already large and complicated world, depth and worldbuilding are sacrificed to pacing to move the plot along. One of the things that bothered me the most was that when the action started to build, whole scenes got cut. There’s a scene in the latter half of the book that builds up to a duel… and the duel is completely skipped. Like, what? Those sword-fighting scenes are some of my favorites in fantasy and I felt completely cheated when the story skipped over the action sequences. There’s a lot of acceptance required in some of the character development as well. Vai, in particular is awkwardly spun out to fit between some of the largest reveals in the book. But the thing is, it’s not a total failure. Beneath all the stumbling is still the wonderful voice that I’ve come to love from Rosamund Hodge. Bright Smoke, Cold Fire has a rushed feeling. I think the author may have over extended herself in creating a second POV, and it seems like she did it because she wanted to keep true to Romeo and Juliet. As a retelling, I can see where she would want to do honor to the original play. But Romeo and Juliet has become sort of a romantic trope – all a retelling really requires is forbidden love between warring factions and tragic death. An unhappy ending. Instead, there’s the two POVs which parallel the play. There’s the characters names kept in bits and pieces that don’t seem to work alongside her worldbuilding. Rosamund Hodge has done retellings before – Cruel Beauty is Beauty and the Beast and Crimson Bound is sort of a loose Little Red Riding Hood retelling. She did them both majestically. I’m not sure why that magic didn’t translate over to this retelling, but it seems like she was trying too hard. Take, for example, The Juliet. The Juliet is an assassin. The name makes no sense except as a nod to the play – she’s an enslaved assassin and constant references to has as The Juliet broke the flow, in my opinion. There are little examples like that throughout the retelling where things didn’t mesh together. I’m not sure if it’s a failure in storytelling or a failure in editing… but it’s something. Beneath the surface, this worldbuilding is really cool. I loved Runajo’s storyline. The Cloister and the conversation about the Sacred Library and the walls to stop the Ruining… I was entranced by it all. I want to read that book. I think with one POV, this story would have worked a bit better and for me, I want that perspective. There’s fog and blood magic and deceptive characters and a lot of chillin conversation about death and it was cool. Also, did I mention this is a necromancer book? I am here for all the necromancer books – just keep sending them my way. I think I’m mostly disappointed in Bright Smoke, Cold Flame because it didn’t live up to my expectations. The play and the story didn’t seem to go together very well. The world was fascinating, but we didn’t get to see enough of it because the characters were in the way. I read the book quickly and I’m just curious enough about the ending that I would read the sequel, but I feel very strongly that this book could’ve beans much more.

This item was perfect and was exactly what i was expecting. The item came in no time and was very well packaged and in a great shape. I'm very happy and pleased with the item i received and want to thank the seller for a terrific product. The description of this item was very accurate and had all correct information. I would also like to include that I received this product for free to review.

too convoluted.. very hard to follow story. characters were flat, story was confusing. should have been a great story however the parallel stories going on were confusing and hard to keep attention. very disappointed as i absolutely love her other stories!!

I was really looking forward to going into this book. I absolutely love the story of Romeo and Juliet and I was excited about this retelling. However, I was left pretty disappointed and DNFed this at just over 100 pages. My biggest issue with this book was the fact that I genuinely had no clue what the heck was going on! I didn't understand why they wore masks, or what the Juliet actually was, the guardian, the sisters... pretty much everything. Nothing was explained in detail or very well within the first 100 or so pages and I felt more like I was blundering through with the hope that it was going to get better/I was going to find out what was going on exactly and why. I didn't enjoy the feeling of being lost throughout and I started putting down the book in order to do something else. I also feel like the plot was affected by the fact that I didn't certain aspects of the society and why some things happened. Without a certain understanding of some of the things the characters were doing, the world building etc. the plot was confusing - even more so because it kept switching between the sisters and Paris and Romeo. My other issue with this book was the characters. I struggled to empathise with them and I didn't feel like the characters each had their own individual voice despite the book being multiple pov. I struggled to differentiate between the pov's and only managed to based off of the chapter titles. I felt like they were all too similar and none of the personalities stood out particularly. All in all, I was pretty disappointed with this book, considering that I was extremely looking forward to this retelling! I gave this book 1/5 stars.

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