Tracy’s review of Master of Smoke (Mageverse #11) by Angela Knight
When beautiful werewolf Eva Roman discovers a handsome Sidhe warrior being magically tortured by another werewolf, she comes to the rescue. Trouble is, the man she christens David has no memory of why he’s being hunted – and no idea how to control his incredible powers. Now both of them have become targets for werewolf assassins. The only hope of survival they have is to turn to each other.
Eva discovers the man she eventually refers to as David being magically tortured by a werewolf. She doesn’t know exactly what’s going on but she knows that she needs to save this man. When David manages to get away from the werewolf Eva finds that he has no idea who he is, where he’s from, why his enemy is after him – zilch. What he does know is that Eva is the woman he wants and he’s not going to leave her. He’s not sure why he thinks that but he’s going with it.
After several events occur and David is able to figure out who is after him, a werewolf who is also a sorcerer named Warlock, but he’s not sure how to fight him. He wants to protect Eva but knows if he stays with her he puts her in danger. Eva is frightened out of her mind but realizes that she doesn’t want David to leave.
While David and Eva’s story is playing we have the Knight of the Round Table, Tristan, trying to find Warlock and kill him…along with trying to find David, who is known to all in the Mageverse as Smoke. Tristan is accompanied, much to his dismay, by a Mageverse seducer by the name of Belle. Tristan thinks that Belle is good for nothing but sleeping with men to turn them into vampires. Belle knows she’s sick of the seducing gig and wants to show Morgana and Arthur that there’s more to her than her skills in the bedroom.
Another story is that of a young werewolf girl, Miranda, who wants nothing to do with her lot in life, which is to be raped and bred by another werewolf. She wants to live her own life and be happy but her mother, step-father and Warlock all have her controlled and watched constantly. How is she to break free from her bleak future?
There was definitely a lot going on in this book but I thought it really was brought together nicely. Miranda’s story I think was the most obscure but I see how it was information that fit into the story and was a prologue of a story yet to come.
I found Eva to be an interesting character as she was a werewolf – or Dire Wolf in this series – but she was still deathly afraid of werewolves – and her own reflection, even though she herself was quite large an intimidating when she became furry. David really helped her try to work out some of her issues and to show her that she’s stronger and braver than she thought. They played so well together and of course the sex was always quite hot – as is usual with an AK book.
The Mageverse books, I’ve discovered, are never the same and I love that about the series. Some are about vampires and knights, some about magic and witches, some about werewolves – but no matter what the books characters are or what the subject matter there’s always an engaging way that the story is told. I love, too, that there’s always humor in the books – not the slapstick stuff, but just funny lines that I couldn’t help but laugh at.
A good read – definitely recommended.
Rating: 4.25 out of 5
You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place
This book is available from Berkley. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
Thanks for the review. I’m impatiently waiting for Borders to deliever my copy as I picked the cheapo shipping option. LOL!