Tree Of Smoke Book Review Novels & Stories

I looked around at the fog coating the forest, and I told myself that was all it was… fog. Soon, my denial bled out, and clarity filled me. I saw it for real this time, the smoke that curled into the sky in thick, black plumes, heavy and churning. This wasn’t the soft gray of hearth fires or the pale drift of morning cookfires. This smoke was oily and wrong. The closer we got, the more you could smell the burning timber, the burning flesh. We were too late…

Trying to get as high as I could go to see my way back. No matter how high I climbed, though. The only thing I could see was the flames consuming the forest. Fire was crawling up the tree towards me. So that I couldn’t go back down. I was now stuck at the top of this tree. Surrounded by flames and smoke. My cloak can only protect me so much. Which is why I was finding it hard to breathe. It looks like my character might die here. Dying in a book I’m in is not new. It doesn’t really kill me.

Fara growls. I sigh, my shoulders dropping. "I don't know," I say. Thick plumes of smoke curl into the sky, the acrid smell burns my nose and makes my eyes water. Small gray flecks fall around us, but I can't tell if it's snow or ash. "Do you see that?" Ash asks, pointing to the trees. My eyebrows furrow. "What?" "The smoke looks like it's moving." He's right. In the most damaged part of the forest, the smoke looks like it's weaving through the trees.

Karla's Pov Alpha Darwin. He was here already. “You're not saying anything? Well, you're smarter than I thought you were, what a pity for you that you could not escape very soon, isn't that it?” Darwin ‘tsked’, puffing out more smoke. My lips trembled as tell tale signs of tears and smoke began to make my eyes burn. The smoke was too much, and I couldn't breathe. Although my body had already begun to fight off the effects of the smoke, it was coming in faster than I could fight it. And just from one cigarette? That couldn't be possible. There had to be other places that the drug was burning from, it was coming from all directions.

I peer around the large tree trunk to find out just how close I am to the pack when I look at a bush to the side, the leaves flickering oddly without the wind. Pulling back, I check the other angle, manoeuvring around Ethan. Nothing, not even a clearing, just miles and miles of tightly packed trees. Sniffing the air, I try to smell any signs of life. When I think I catch the smallest scent of smoke. “Keep close to the trees, “I’ll call you if I need to,” Ethan nods and letting my senses pull me in the direction the smoke is coming from I phase once again.

The prairie is every bit as dangerous as the sea, and here, sharks hide in every shadow. The scent of smoke hits my lungs, and I slow, lifting my head to take a deep breath. Something is on fire. I come to a stop and inhale a few more times. The scent of burning timber registers. This isn’t a grass fire. It smells like the forest after a lightning strike. But there is no forest near us. It has to be a structure fire. Another whiff brings the milder scent of burning leather–and then a fainter note of fur and flesh. “What is that?” Kan asks through the mind-link.

He burned it, or at least he thought he had. But the next day, against all reason and logic, the book was there again. It reappeared, untouched, beneath that very same tree. That’s when his desperation turned to madness. He didn’t just want the book gone—he wanted the tree that birthed it destroyed. He summoned flames so fierce they licked the heavens, engulfing the tree in a sea of fire. And yet, when the smoke cleared, the tree stood unharmed. Its bark was blackened but unbroken; the only change inflicted on the book and tree was that they were pure black since then.

LILA’S POV The smoke from the camp’s smoldering ruins clung to the trees like a shroud, a harsh reminder of how close we’d come to losing everything. The air was thick with dust, burned wood, and the metallic tang of blood, and every inhale left a bitter taste in my mouth. I knelt among the scattered, trembling bodies of my mates, hands glowing faintly as I swept over wounds, whispered healing energy into broken bones and scorched skin.

she asked with a wrinkle of her nose. It smelled weird, like something that belonged in a Twoleg dump as her mother had described them. "That is grass," Frost purred. "It doesn't smell bad, it just looks different because you have never seen grass." Smoke and her siblings looked at Frost as if she had grown wings. This whole idea of staying in a nest had sounded fun at first, but now Smoke wasn't sure. "Come on, we're going inside," Frost murmured.

Elma it didn’t start with blood. It started with the trees. Tall. Blackened. Burning at the edges. Smoke curled through the air like fingers dragging secrets across my skin. Ash rained from the sky, soft and soundless like snow. Each flake carried a memory. Each memory, a scream. I was running. My legs were too small. My hands too cold. I was barefoot, slicing through broken branches that snagged at my skin, carving lines of pain into my ankles.