The Smoke in His Voice

[cornerofmadness]

The Smoke in His Voice by J.V. Silver

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


One star is for the absolutely gorgeous cover and the title (and a little for how enthusiastically the author told me about this book at a pop culture con) But there are huge problems with this book. Let me tackle what I liked about it.

I loved the Buffy/Supernatural vibes in this. We have an organization, the Slayers, who fight the Nocturni, all the supernatural creatures that hunt the night. One of the Slayers is Warren Yi, a dhampir, the offspring of a human and vampire (and who has traits of both including some weaknesses to the very tools he uses and who is in danger of turning full nocturni himself) And we have the rock band, We Four Lost Cosmonauts and their lead singer Niccolo Volpe.

These two, Warren and Nico, converge in Stoker Nevada as someone is trying to resurrect Dracula, who is a special type of vampire. He can't be revived if the world plans to survive. What is interesting is that both Warren and Nico have special connections to this and even more interesting is how Nico's voice can activate anti-nocturni powers. That was super cool actually.

Naturally Warren and Nico become lovers and naturally Warren should be killing Nico to save the world. Good hook, there is enough betrayal and tension to keep you reading and the ending works.

What I was meh about - insta-love. Yes, I know it's a trope. Yes I know people swear it's happened to them. No, it doesn't work for me. And we go in just a few days from meeting to I love you and will let the world die so I don't have to kill you. I was also meh about that pacing. We have so much scene setting in the beginning but I'd rather have had a bit more time to watch this relationship grow before Warren realizes this. It would have been so much more effective.

And where I had a HUGE problem. The editing because holy hell it's a hot mess. I would have sworn there was zero editing but there is an editor listed. Look, I get it, publishing books yourself can actually be more money than you can hope to make back, sad truth. That cover is where all the author's money went, you can tell. It's a fantastic cover.

The author is a fanficcer (You could tell, trust me I've been one for decades myself) and I have to wonder if the editor was another fanfic friend because there's no way this was a professional editor (which could, as I said, cost more than a self-pub might make) Either the editor wasn't a pro or the author ignored it because there is no way you turn out grammar like this unless you aren't editing.

The tenses change like they're tidal. One wave - past tense, next wave - present, so on and so forth even within the same paragraph. Throughout the whole book. And the other. Thing is that. the author used. Periods sprinkled in like confetti. Like I just did in that single sentence. So you have a novel filled with fragments. I'm not sure how any of that happened. You have to assume the author read other books and knows that's not you how you work a period. It was bizarre. It was distracting. It made me not want to get the next book even though I liked the plot. It is screaming for an editor which is a shame because it had potential.



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