Smoke & Summons by Charlie N. Holmberg

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean


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 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…

I've owned this book for a while now, so when it came up as a buddy read I was excited about finally getting to read it. This is the first book I've read by this author, and for the most part I enjoyed reading it. I liked the characters immediately, and I thought the plot was interesting, and I loved the fire horse demon. It's definitely YA, but that didn't bother me. This is one of those books that are good to read when you want a break from the heavy stuff. At times this author's style reminded me a bit of Jeff Wheeler, but this is a somewhat darker tale than anything I've read by Wheeler.

I will say that I thought the characters did some stupid things that seemed to be there just to help move the plot along. Without those stupid moments there would have been a lot less drama. I would have preferred it if they had been written smarter and the drama had come about a different way, but overall I liked this enough to read the next book in the series.