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4.0
Smoke and Other Storms (The Revere Trilogy, #1)
ByPublisher Description
Welcome to the Rim.
Come seek your fortune in a paradise of endless sun. Land is cheap and the possibilities endless, where the edge of the map meets the end.
The mining campaigns always forget a few details. Moon Season makes storms volatile. You’re more likely to be killed by your neighbor than strike a crystal vein, and there’s only one name you should bother knowing around here: Revere.
Moira and her granddaughter Adelaide are professionals. Smugglers, thieves, and arms dealers, the Revere women have lifted their family business from the dust, and with their train they’ve become the most notorious gang in the territory.
After an accident damages her sister’s eyes, Adelaide finds an opportunity that will not only pay for a sight-saving operation but pull the family from the shadows of the back market for good. Accompanied by her sisters, Adelaide guides a survey crew into the uncharted West Rim –a poisonous desert concealing untapped riches– with the full intent to claim the fortune for themselves.
But when Moira learns a bounty has been placed on the family, she discovers a deeper plan already in motion that will change the Rim forever.
Come seek your fortune in a paradise of endless sun. Land is cheap and the possibilities endless, where the edge of the map meets the end.
The mining campaigns always forget a few details. Moon Season makes storms volatile. You’re more likely to be killed by your neighbor than strike a crystal vein, and there’s only one name you should bother knowing around here: Revere.
Moira and her granddaughter Adelaide are professionals. Smugglers, thieves, and arms dealers, the Revere women have lifted their family business from the dust, and with their train they’ve become the most notorious gang in the territory.
After an accident damages her sister’s eyes, Adelaide finds an opportunity that will not only pay for a sight-saving operation but pull the family from the shadows of the back market for good. Accompanied by her sisters, Adelaide guides a survey crew into the uncharted West Rim –a poisonous desert concealing untapped riches– with the full intent to claim the fortune for themselves.
But when Moira learns a bounty has been placed on the family, she discovers a deeper plan already in motion that will change the Rim forever.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesSmoke and Other Storms (The Revere Trilogy, #1) Reviews
4.0
“I was really intrigued by the premise of this novel. I mean, Wild West + dark fantasy + strong female leads?! That checks all the boxes! I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of fantasy being set in the Middle Ages or the Victorian Era. It’s boring! And it’s been done to death! So, I was really excited about a fantasy set in the Wild West.
But a good idea does not always equal a good book. Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoyed reading this story! But I think it was a few tarnishes short of being polished.
When reviewing a book, I always consider that the writer poured their heart and soul into the story. I know from experience how much a bad review hurts, and I never want to give that hurt to someone else.
However, I believe criticism is entwined with creativity. Something I learned in college is criticism refines you. What’s important is that the criticism doesn’t tear the creator down but rather builds them up. So, I’m going to talk about two things I liked and one thing I didn’t. My dislikes will be sandwiched by my likes to soften the blow, and instead of saying I just didn’t like this, I will share some thoughts on what I think would have made it better.
My first like may appear to be a double negative. Because the thing is, I hate first tense! I don’t know if it was Hunger Games or college, but I really, really don’t like first tense. That’s my preference. However, J.L. Delavega's use of first-person tense was engaging and evocative. I could feel the characters’ emotions, and I grew to care about them. First tense is perhaps the most intimate view of a character. There is no distance between the character and the reader, and it makes for a very intimate read.
What I think could use some work is Delavega’s worldbuilding or, rather, lack thereof.
Smoke and Other Storms has what I call a Dune problem. To understand the Dune problem, we have to discuss the Dune movies. Denis Villeneuve’s vision with Dune is for the audience to feel like they were watching a documentary. That’s why he doesn’t take the time to explain the world, history, or context. And that’s why everyone who has watched the Dune movies, no matter how much they love them, walks away scratching their heads. Because the Dune problem is that we are never properly introduced to the world. Instead, we’re thrown in without context, which doesn’t work with sci-fi or fantasy.
If you’ve studied worldbuilding at all, you’ve probably found this advice: don’t info dump; instead, sprinkle it throughout your novel. That’s good advice, but I think it leaves something out. Take the time to introduce your world! Ask yourself, what does my reader need to know to understand my world.
Like Dune, Smoke and Other Storms throws you into its world without an introduction or context. The Rim is not the Wild West that we know and love. It’s a new world with a different history and magic system (I’m still not exactly sure what the Stranger is). My suggestion to fix the Dune problem is to take a paragraph or two to introduce your world and its magic system. For example, the in-a-galaxy-far-away text that begins every Star Wars movie. It’s short and sweet, but we’re given all the information we need to understand Star Wars.
Finally, my favorite thing about this book was the descriptions. Delavega’s descriptions were absolutely beautiful! I absolutely loved her use of metaphor, simile, and the five senses. The thing about good description is it really brings the setting to life. Perhaps the descriptions resonated with me so strongly because I grew up in the Wild West, and Delavega’s descriptions were so vividly familiar to the desert that I call home. Here are a few descriptions that really stood out to me:
“Juniper only grows near Winchester. Bands of blue sage fill the deep canyons, their skytone-colored roots visible like my veins where the rock has been eaten away. But the juniper cooked by the sun is the greatest smell in existence.”
“The shadows of a storm blooms like a bruise a few miles northwest. The taste of burned atmosphere hasn’t charged the air yet. But this is a shitty place to weather one.”
“The bones of a fortress lie in ruin below, piled and broken where the hillside sloughed away. A rib of tarnished metal protrudes from the dirt.”
These are just a few of the lovely descriptions waiting for you in Smoke and Other Storms. Seriously, the book is worth reading for the descriptions alone!”
“I was genuinely excited to read this book. Not only does it include strong female leads, dark fantasy, and steampunk; it’s set in the Wild West! I’ll be honest: Smoke and Other Storms started off a bit slow. I felt a little lost in this world because I needed a little more context to understand this world, its history, and its magic. There wasn’t a good explanation of what the Stranger was until pg. 180! I wish there had been a few paragraphs in the beginning that introduced this world: the foxes, the Stranger, the history of the Rim, the pestilence, and the people of Eden. Just a little bit of context would have gone a long way. That said, J.L. Delavega’s descriptive and suspenseful writing pulled me into her world. Her descriptions were by far my favorite part of this book! I grew up in the Wild West, and Delavega’s descriptions were eerily similar to the desert I call home. I could picture it so clearly and even smell the sun-cooked juniper. I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, but I think Adelaide was asexual. Love to see inclusivity and representation! Honestly, I really appreciated that romance wasn’t the focus of this story.”“3.75 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rounded up for Goodreads
“But survival is what you do when that’s your only hope. I deserve a better life than that.”
Was I confused at times when I read this? Yes. Is it a bit slow in the beginning? Also yes, but is it a cool book and good read? Absolutely! This is a feminist western, there is a literal multigenerational girl gang. There’s also some steampunk, sci-fi elements as well. It’s the first in a trilogy, the second book is released(will be picking it up ASAP) and both are on Kindle Unlimited!
There are no damsels in distress in this book, only survivors.”
“This book was absolutely brilliant. It's refreshingly unique, I loved it and can't wait for the next one!”
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