"Master of Smoke," Angela Knight

Pros: Fun characters, and a great werewolf heroine
Cons: The Mageverse is a little too mixed-up and wacky for my tastes; too-instant sexual chemistry between the main characters
Rating: 3 out of 5

Review book courtesy of Penguin Group

Eva Roman is still coping with the realities of having become a werewolf after being attacked and bitten. When she rescues a handsome stranger from another werewolf, she dives head-first into far more dangerous waters. David doesn’t remember who he is—he was stripped of his identity and powers in the attack. He has no idea that he’s a powerful and ancient warrior, and that his attacker is an immortal, and quite thoroughly insane, werewolf, who will stop at nothing to make sure that David can’t ever take his powers back.

I’m not sure how to describe Angela Knight’s Master of Smoke. I find the Mageverse rather chaotic, filled to the brim with all sorts of legendary names, supernatural races, and so on. Unfortunately, that’s rather par for the course in today’s urban fantasy worlds, so while there are a few rather unique details (King Arthur and his knights are vampires?!), they feel kind of arbitrary and don’t differentiate the Mageverse enough from other authors’ worlds.

Many of the individual characters are quite enjoyable. Eva is a hilarious heroine; she calls her werewolf side “Fluffy” and the two of them have highly entertaining internal dialogues. I also rather liked David, as well as Belle, a witch who goes in search of him. You’ll find clever and witty dialogue in here, and the writing style & voice themselves are engaging and fun.

One part that annoyed me, however, was just how quickly the main characters developed the hots for each other. It’s nice to see some buildup of sexual tension and chemistry, even if it’s a short one. It makes it easier to buy into and “feel” a character relationship.

While I certainly enjoyed Master of Smoke, it didn’t make me want to run out and buy more Mageverse novels. If you’re still fairly new to the cluttered paranormal worlds out there this would probably be a fine example, but as it is, it feels a little bit redundant. This is a shame, because I absolutely adore the “Time Hunter” novels I’ve read, which were also written by Ms. Knight.