3 stars 
 Disclaimer: I received a free copy of Smoke through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to Dany Vyleta and Orion Publishing Group 
 So this wasn't bad - I liked the concept, I kind of liked the plot and I was pretty happy with the characters but something about it just made it feel like it dragged on and on until I got to the point where I was really just willing it to end. It is a pretty long book already but it felt so much longer. 
 So the concept is pretty original - we have a world where sin (or passion, or hatred, or madness, depending who you ask) is manifested as smoke coming from the sinner's body. I was intrigued by this but I do think it was a difficult concept to pull off and, although Dan Vyleta gave it a good go and had a fairly successful result, I don't feel that it was written that brilliantly. One thing that particularly bothered me was the jumping about between points of view. Normally it doesn't bother me when an author writes a book with different chapters following different characters but Vyleta didn't seem able to decide whether he wanted to write this in first or third person so he thought he'd do a mixture and it really didn't work. I don't feel like I ever properly spent time with any of the characters, I never really got to know them that well, though I feel like they were likeable, relatable characters and I would have liked them if I knew them a bit better. 
 Likely because of this, I didn't really have an emotional reaction to any of the events or characters in Smoke, unless perhaps you count boredom. I think it's a real shame because it did have so much potential, it just lacked an ability to really connect with the reader, to really make you feel things. Also, in the end, I felt that I wasn't really sure what the book was trying to do. I felt that it was trying to be meaningful but I wasn't completely sure what meaning it was going for, the ending mostly just felt a bit rushed and confused and like it was trying to be ground-breaking but actually just wasn't. 
 I did enjoy Smoke at times - it wasn't a bad book, it just had a lot of potential that wasn't realised, but I'm not trying to completely slam it. I'm not going to go around recommending it to everyone I meet but I may give Dan Vyleta another go if I find something particularly intriguing.