Smoke - Hardcover

Vyleta, Dan

3.27

6,314 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1443440671 ISBN 13: 9781443440677

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2016

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“The laws of Smoke are complex. Not every lie will trigger it. A fleeting thought of evil may pass unseen; a fib, an excuse, a piece of flattery. Next thing you know its smell is in your nose. There is no more hateful smell in the world than the smell of Smoke.”

England. A century ago, give or take a few years.

An England where people who are wicked in thought or deed are marked by the Smoke that pours forth from their bodies, a sign of their fallen state. The aristocracy do not smoke, proof of their virtue and right to rule, while the lower classes are drenched in sin and soot. An England utterly strange and utterly real.

An elite boarding school where the sons of the wealthy are groomed to take power as their birthright. Teachers with mysterious ties to warring political factions at the highest levels of government. Three young people who learn everything they’ve been taught is a lie - knowledge that could cost them their lives. A grand estate where secrets lurk in attic rooms and hidden laboratories. A love triangle. A desperate chase. Revolutionaries and secret police. Religious fanatics and coldhearted scientists. Murder. A London filled with danger and wonder. A tortured relationship between a mother and a daughter, and a mother and a son. Unexpected villains and unexpected heroes. Cool reason versus passion. Rich versus poor. Right versus wrong, though which is which isn’t clear.

This is the world of Smoke, a narrative tour de force, a tale of Dickensian intricacy and ferocious imaginative power, richly atmospheric and intensely suspenseful.

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From the Back Cover:

Imagine a world in which every wicked thought is visible to all . . .

In an alternative Victorian England, a population is held in thrall to sin. From a brief flicker of envy to a deep murderous rage, sin is immediately visible as smoke rising from the skin. The worse the sin, the more noxious the haze. But the elite have learned to control their smoke, proof of their virtue and right to rule.

Thomas Argyle and Charlie Cooper are friends at a prestigious boarding school near Oxford. Charlie is naturally good, but Thomas’s father was accused of a terrible crime, and Thomas fears that the same evil lies coiled inside him. Then, on a trip to London—a forbidden city shrouded in darkness—they witness an event that leads them to question the very nature of virtue. But it is Livia, the daughter of a powerful aristocrat, who reveals that the rules of smoke can be broken. Together, they set out on a quest to uncover the truth about their world of smoke, soot and ash—and perhaps to change it . . .

Combining history, allegory and adventure, Smoke is a narrative tour de force and a tale of ferocious imaginative power, told by a master storyteller.

About the Author:

DAN VYLETA is the son of Czech refugees to Germany. Having lived in Germany, Canada, the US, Turkey, Austria and the UK, he aspires to be bohemian in more ways than one. He is the author of Pavel & I, The Quiet Twin (shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize), The Crooked Maid (shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, a Globe and Mail Book of the Year and winner of the J.I. Segal Award) and Smoke (a Canadian bestseller translated into ten languages). Dan Vyleta currently teaches literature and writing at the University of Birmingham in the UK.

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