Read this: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

You guys. It’s rare that a book blows me away as much as DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE did. But it’s true. This book? Blew. Me. Away.

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious “errands”; she speaks many languages–not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When one of the strangers–beautiful, haunted Akiva–fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Laini Taylor is officially my new favorite writer. Her prose is effortlessly beautiful. She could teach a master class on pacing and mystery. Her characters, even the most minor ones, are fully-formed, believable and sympathetic. And the world-building. Holy crap with the world-building. Every little detail has been thought out and traced back to a logical conclusion. It’s the type of book that a writer should study and learn from. I know it taught me a great deal, especially as far as crafting a mystery element goes. Seriously, I feel like I should send Ms. Taylor tuition money or something. I will DEFINITELY be purchasing the sequel to this one  (and then probably will be staying up late in the wee hours of the morning with it, flipping the pages because I just have to read the whole thing in one sitting).

I can’t stop gushing about this book to everyone I know. If you haven’t picked it up yet, DO IT. And if you have read DAUGHTER, what did you think? Did you love it as much as I did?

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