The Smoke and the Sea by Katie Cross

Britt is a dragon keeper, charged with keeping her brother’s dragon safe. But her brother never returned from his mission and now his dragon will die if it’s not reunited with him soon. Henrik is a soldat, a ruthless soldier, secretly looking for the family he was stolen from when he was only five years old. When they meet, a deal is struck: if she helps him find his mother, he’ll help her find her brother.

This was a bit of light reading for me, I needed a break from the intensity of the books I’ve been reading and thought I’d dive into a light-hearted romantasy.

The first thing that stood out to me was that it was an interesting twist on dragons. Instead of these gargantuan lizards, the dragons in this book are small enough to fit in a pocket. But I don’t really understand the system in which dragons are bonded with people… I suppose there’s a benefit to the dragon: being so small means it would have a much bigger protector. But on the other hand there seems to be no benefit to the humans who bond with them, or if there is this book didn’t cover it (this is a 5 book series).

One of the things that I like about this book (and the ones that follow, even though I haven’t read them yet) is that it’s advertised as a clean romance. Romantasy is a relatively new genre, but most of the adult titles I’ve heard about in this genre are high on spice. This isn’t specifically young adult, but your kids could safely read it.

There is one glaring problem with this first novel in the series. There’s virtually no romance. Even with clean romance, I would have liked to see a little heat between the two characters to at least suggest they’re falling in love with each other, but at most Henrik becomes slightly protective of Britt when she’s in trouble which she often is. It left me asking a question to the author: “You are going to put romance in your romance novel, aren’t you?” And I asked this question right up until the very end… The answer was no, no she was not. Maybe it occurs in book 2,3,4,or 5. But I’m not sure if I want to read more.

I would classify the actual writing style and storytelling as just okay. If you are looking for easy comparisons the writing is better than Twilight (which I guess is technically classified as paranormal romance), but not as good as The Fourth Wing.

It’s a good read if you are looking for some good clean fun, but don’t expect to be swept off your feet by a hero.