Stars and Smoke is a young adult spy novel and thriller about a pop star that pairs up with a special ops team to bring down a billionaire arms dealer.
Winter Young is a pop star and world wide phenomenon that is approached by a clandestine group (Panacea) to act as a covert operative when he performs at a private concert for a billionaire’s teenage daughter. Winter is paired up with an experienced spy (Sydney Cossette) and sparks immediately fly. The two will have to navigate a weekend of galas and events in order to find the players involved in a deadly arms deal. But the plan goes sideways and the two will have to depend on each other (and their growing feelings) to save the mission and themselves.
Stars and Smoke is a more at the upper end of YA but I wish Marie Lu took it even further. I think both characters could have been aged up even further with more realistic violence (Sydney was always knocking various goons out with her gun instead of just outright killing them) and romance. There is a lot of heat and tension between the two characters that could have created a love scene or two but it’s actually quite chaste. I also found the two characters overly mature and accomplished for their ages and I think they would have worked on the page even better as 21-24 year olds. I do look forward to more books in the series (mostly to see Winter again) and what their relationship and spy work will look like in the future.
Overall, this was a fast paced and fun teen spy novel.
Winter Young is a pop star and world wide phenomenon that is approached by a clandestine group (Panacea) to act as a covert operative when he performs at a private concert for a billionaire’s teenage daughter. Winter is paired up with an experienced spy (Sydney Cossette) and sparks immediately fly. The two will have to navigate a weekend of galas and events in order to find the players involved in a deadly arms deal. But the plan goes sideways and the two will have to depend on each other (and their growing feelings) to save the mission and themselves.
Stars and Smoke is a more at the upper end of YA but I wish Marie Lu took it even further. I think both characters could have been aged up even further with more realistic violence (Sydney was always knocking various goons out with her gun instead of just outright killing them) and romance. There is a lot of heat and tension between the two characters that could have created a love scene or two but it’s actually quite chaste. I also found the two characters overly mature and accomplished for their ages and I think they would have worked on the page even better as 21-24 year olds. I do look forward to more books in the series (mostly to see Winter again) and what their relationship and spy work will look like in the future.
Overall, this was a fast paced and fun teen spy novel.