Stars and Smoke by Marie Lu is a ya rockstar turned spy story and I really liked it.
 
The Legend Series is one of my classic favorites and I’m always looking forward to new books from the author. And this one is totally so different from her previous works and the concept of the book is just unique and unexpected.
 
Winter Young is a famous musician and idol to many. He is at the peak of his career with selling out stadiums and having a BTS like status. I really liked how the fame didn’t get to his head and he was a very genuine person who is just living his dream. One day he is approached by agents who want to recruit him for a secret mission. After all, who would suspect a superstar to be a spy?
 
The plot of this book is thrilling, and you just want this mission to succeed. But it’s not that easy and Winter obviously can’t complete it alone. By his side is Scarlet aka The Jackal and she is ruthless and such a badass and I liked her as well.
 
Overall, this book is perfect to just dive into and to fall in love with the characters while being glued to the pages. 4 stars.
 
(ARC kindly provided in exchange for a review.)

I took a big chance on requesting this book. I did it entirely because Marie Lu is an (almost) Always Read It author. She grabbed me with The Young Elites, almost lost me with the Legend series, then got me back with Warcross.

But. But but but. This is New Adult.

This is Contemporary.

This is ROMANCE.



But again, this is Marie Lu. Whose writing really drags me in and takes me places. So, I took a chance on a suspenseful new adult espionage featuring the male Taylor Swift going on a mission with a secret agent who looks like Taylor Swift to take down evil Elon Musk.

Well. Evil-er Elon Musk.

And I enjoy espionage. A good thriller. Secret agents, secret agent gadgets, near death experiences, no matter how fluffy the overall genre.

And this?

This is REALLY good.

There is fluff, plenty of fluff to satisfy the average New Adult reader. Tingly feels, "why can't I stop thinking about"s, S/He is so much deeper than I expecteds, all the genre staples.

But the road to get there is just so enjoyable. This cast of characters, from the World's Most Famous Popstar to the Super Spy with a Super Tragic backstory. The backup dancers, the manager, the Paris Hilton heiress and her Seemingly Kind But Obviously Nefarious Richer than God father who can kill you with a wag of his pinky finger.

The fight scenes are so good, so well choreographed and explained. I wish we'd gotten some good training montages, especially since this is the Exposition book, where it all begins. But really, her showing how Winter's abilities lend themselves to super sleuth training really was a nice touch.

And this is only book one in a series. I'm not sure if I will keep going with it, but honestly, this was so damn enjoyable I can't see any reason I wouldn't.

So fun. So so fun. Give me more.

This was such a super quick read me; I loved this and forgot to eat my lunch so absorbed in reading “just one more chapter”. I wish we had more background info on certain things, and that we got some follow up to other things, but what a zippy read. I cannot wait for book 2!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Steam Level: 🔥 (kissing only)
Trigger Warning: murder; brief mentions of breathing disorder, death of a loved one recounted, depression, abuse, and divorce

Ever since a viral video made him famous, Winter Young has been selling out concerts as one of the top performing pop stars. Now he's been selected to take on a different role as an undercover agent for Panacea- a secret organization taking on cases that even the CIA has struggled to solve. Winter has been hired to perform for billionaire Eli Morrison's daughter's birthday, and while he's there he must get evidence of Morrison's link to criminal activity. But Winter won't be working alone. He's been paired with Sydney Cossette- a young thief recruited by Panacea- who will pose as his bodyguard and help him carry out his mission. As the case becomes more complicated than these two anticipated, so do their feelings for one another. Can they stop a criminal and also keep their hearts guarded?

I don't read much romantic suspense, so the premise of this book had me hooked from the beginning. I loved the idea of a famous pop star being recruited to stop a criminal. And the added romance made this even more intriguing. While the first half of the book did have some slow parts, the end really brought the action and suspense. There were some unexpected twists along the way that I wasn't able to predict, and I was eager to see how it all would play out. The romance between Sydney and Winter could have used a bit more build up, but I definitely felt the chemistry in the end. There was a bit of an enemies to lovers feel, and I enjoyed watching Sydney's opinion of Winter change throughout their time together. I'm looking forward to book 2 in the series and seeing how the romance progresses, as well as the mission these two will be sent on next!

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I have read some of Ms. Lu's novels and this one did not disappoint! A wonderful novel that involves spies and a famous entertainer and how their lives intertwine to stop a ruthless businessman. Winter, a famous singer, is recruited to gather information on illegal operations. Winter is skeptical at first, until they dangle something in front of him, something rather important to him. Winter has his own issues, stemming from his childhood, but hides it rather well, and he is perceptive. Sydney came from a difficult home life and looked for an escape. A rather interesting talent got the attention of an organization and Sydney began her training as a spy, also with her own secrets and skeptical of having a famous singer as her partner. Together, Winter and Sydney need to find enough evidence to stop a wealthy crime lord without getting caught or killed. A great read for those who enjoy spies and adventures!
I received this novel from net galley and the publisher as an ARC. Thank you! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

It’s like a young adult version of James Bond and this book was so much fun! The plot is an exciting adventure from start to finish. Readers are going to love this new series and long-time fans of this author will not be disappointed. It is definitely very different genre-wise from what she has written before, but it's no less enjoyable. Getting to know our MMC, Winter, we see an intimate look into what his life is like behind the scenes and backstage, plus the negative side of being a superstar and that industry. I really felt for Winter’s personal inner struggles. Both of their childhoods were so tragic. And our MFC, Sydney, is an absolute badass. These two together are gold. The sarcasm and witty humor abound and I was loving every minute of it.

This is a different kind of story coming from Marie Lu. We are used to her dystopian adventures, but this one is more of a high stakes mystery. This book is perfect for the middle school setting. I found the enemies to lovers, while undercover, story very slow. Things did not pick up until the end.

winter young is the exact opposite of what comes to mind when you hear “spy.” he’s an international sensation and can’t go many places without being followed. but the unexpectedness is what makes him a perfect one, according to panacea. he’s put with sydney to take down a billionaire’s illegal empire, but their mission quickly goes awry when shots are fired.

as someone who’s read and loved marie lu’s previous books, i was so excited when i heard about this one! while this is a different genre from her usual sci-fi, i still had a blast with this book and will definitely have to read book two when that’s available.

this book was really quick-paced and bingeable, which i haven’t gotten from a book in a while. while this book was nothing groundbreaking, i still enjoyed the plot and the characters and i would recommend this to any other marie lu lovers.

I really like this Author and loved her steelstriker duology so when I saw this available on NetGalley I was excited. But admittedly this is a big shift from what I’ve read from this author because it’s not really fantasy or sci-fi.

Essentially, we have a superstar named Winter Young who is definitely inspired by a BTS member, which I love and appreciate. He’s missing meaning in his life and misses his brother who died and has a mom
Who doesn’t really mom him. He gets asked to join a spy mission with Sydney, who also has a sad family background, as they travel to London to essentially take down the leader of an organized crime group. Obviously they grow to develop romantic feelings.

Spoilers follow.

This book is getting three stars because the mystery wasn’t really a mystery. It was super obvious who was guilty and behind everything. The mobster’s daughter and her fake boyfriend were in cahoots to kill him and take over his business as revenge for what he did to her mom. Super obvious, which made the book feel slow and like there wasn’t anything on the line.

I also didn’t really love Winter and Sydney together. He’s great and has a lot of depth but she lacks some depth and development and they don’t really have a lot in common other than tragic family stories. I wasn’t rooting for them and honestly even by the end of the book I wasn’t rooting for them. I’m honestly surprised this book is going to be part of a series. Maybe in the next book Sydney won’t be as annoying and have some depth added to her.

I have had a love-hate relationship with Marie Lu's titles since I read Legend. I loved Warcross but then hated her other books. This one was along the same lines on why I hated Legend. Nothing really happens until past the middle of the book. A story needs to have something to grip you and keep you reading. But sadly this one just didn't do that. I was bored. I wished that this would have been closer to the blurb that stated it was The Hating Game meets Mission Impossible. Because this was not what I got.

Stars and Smoke by Marie Lu was such a great book! We have spies, espionage, a global pop star, and a great story. Winter and Sydney are both riddled with insecurities that they have gotten very good at covering up, so when they come together, they really can't stand each other, probably because they recognize their own faults in each other. The story is told from both of their viewpoints, which gives us a lot of insight into what makes them tick. They each bring something to their mission, and they are determined to complete it. Failure isn't an option. There were also some great secondary characters who helped shape the story.

This was a really quick read for me because I couldn't put it down. Marie Lu has done it again, and I can't wait to see where Winter and Sydney go in the next installment of the series.

5/5 stars.

*** I would like to thank NetGalley, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, and Marie Lu for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Marie Lu has created a great espionage tale with Stars and Smoke. I have been a fan of hers since the release of Legend back in 2011. The story started out a bit slow for me, but like a lot of great stories, it was well worth the time for the background information build. I continue to be impressed with Marie Lu's storytelling and this new foray for her is again excellent.

I enjoyed this book so much. Sydney and Winter are fantastic, complex lovable characters that you just want to give big hugs. I love any sort of spy story, and this one did not disappoint. The twists and turns I did not see coming. Marie Lu touches upon topics of loss, betrayal, love and family without it being heavy handed or taking the reader out of the story. I hope there are a lot more Sydney snd Winter stories in the future.

Marie Lu is one of my favorite authors and I thought this book would be a hit for me. Unfortunately it just didn't work for me. The characters didn't feel well developed. That may be because this is the first book in a series. I struggled to connect to the characters. The story itself was fast paced and had some fun moments.

If you miss shows like Alias, read this book! It has all the elements and pacing of a great summer beach read - quick action, engaging characters with the right amount of flaws and baggage to be interesting, light romance, and enough plot twists to keep you guessing. For YA readers who loved books like City of Spies, Charlie Thorne, Alex Rider, or Spy School when they were younger, this is the book for you.

This was my first read by Marie Lu, and it was alright. This is a YA book through and through, but the protagonists are older than typical YA so I was left feeling like they were a bit childlike for their ages. I found the premise of this novel fun, but the actual execution fell a bit flat. The characters needed to be fleshed out a little bit more, because their motivations and changes don't make a lot of sense. Sydney hates Winter and then she just doesn't anymore and we move on from that. Also, the disappearing health conditions? That was confusing. It supposedly hinders her ability to even perform her job but it just sort of disappears. I felt like all of the major changes in this book, character-wise, just happen with little-to-no support from character description or personality.
I wish that the writing was a bit deeper, too. It felt like we were skimming through the book from the amount of telling and not showing we were privy to.
I can see why people like Marie Lu--her narrative voice was solid. But the characters and the depth of information we were given just didn't really work for this story. I think that the teens at my library will love this, though--Marie Lu tends to fly off of our shelves, so I'm excited to see how they react to this one.

I really enjoyed this book, even though I had to suspend a lot of disbelief with much of the book. I had a few minor issues with the story, but overall it was a fast and fun read with great characters and a nice twisty plot that kept me on the edge of my seat.

I’m going to get the small issues that I didn’t like out of the way first. My biggest one was the age of the Winter and Sydney. This would have been far easier to believe if they were, say, in their mid to upper twentys. Even the most mature teens would have had trouble coping with the things these two got into. Also, there were some time inconsistencies that kind of bugged me, but the biggest one was that Winter only got one week of training before he got thrown into the spy business, but there were some references that it was a month, so again, time issues. But even with these issues I really enjoyed the book.

Both Sydney and Winter narrate this story. They are both wonderfully complex characters with fully developed back stories. They both had hard childhoods with lots of loss that they are still dealing with. Even though this is being called an enemies to lovers story, I would say that that isn’t really the case. They don’t particularly like each other when they first meet, she finds him obnoxious and he find her cold and unfeeling, but they soon warm up to each other and begin to respect each other as well. They end up working very well together and their feelings for each other begin to grow throughout the story.

There are some great secondary characters that I just adored and hope to see more of in future books. Claire, Winter’s manager and stand in mother figure, was great and I loved how much she really cared for Winter. Leo and Dameon, Winter’s best friends and backup dancers, were also a lot of fun and a great support for Winter. Sauda and Niall, Sydney’s fellow agents, were almost like her parents to her and I loved their banter with her and each other.

The plot was very well done, although a tad predictable. I loved the villains, Eli Morrison and Connor Doherty were well fleshed out and superbly evil. I felt sorry, sort of, for Penelope, Eli’s daughter, but she too had a role to play in the story that ended up being more than Winter and Sydney expected. Winter and Sydney find themselves in all sorts of difficult situations, especially in the second half of the story, and it becomes very James Bond like in dangers and how they get out of these situations. But that made it all the more fun.

This is a great story with solid characters that fans of Marie Lu will enjoy and love. I am very much looking forward to at least one more adventure with Winter and Sydney and I am hoping there will be many more after that.

An entertaining but rather preposterous romance/thriller that, despite new adult protagonists, had a very strong YA vibe. Winter Young is a huge pop star who is recruited by a covert organization to infiltrate a criminal kingpin's world. His partner in the operation is Sydney, who acts as Winter's bodyguard, and she is absurdly skilled in fighting, poisons, and all manner of spy craft despite her young age. The story alternates between the two perspectives, and, as I'm sure you can guess, sparks fly between them as they take on a mission that becomes more dangerous by the hour. This was a fun, fast read, but I just couldn't buy into the story fully. It's getting harder and harder to find YA novels that grab me, and I probably won't continue with this series whenever the next book comes out. Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, and Roaring Brook Press for a digital review copy.

I have heard a lot of things about Marie Lu’s series and thought her newest young adult release would be perfect to start with. This book is perfect for fans of Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy as well as XOXO - as it’s a mashup of spy romance with an idol romance. The book follows an international superstar (Winter Young) and a young covert operative in training (Sydney Cossette) as they try to complete a mission in intel gathering. Winter is our lonely superstar while Sydney is our ambitious covert operative.

This book has forced proximity, fake dating and some hints of enemies to lovers tropes. It has cute, swoon worthy moments and flirty dialogue as well as good twists. The book is written in a limited third person point of view that alternates between our two main characters. It also has a few transcripted dialogues between two covert agents that gives the reader some additional background.

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a cute spy romance or a good kpop fanfiction. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a lighter mystery read but not anyone looking for a steamy or thriller read.

I'm not sure what it was about this one, but this book just didn't really work for me. The protagonists, especially Sydney, didn't feel that fleshed out to me. Sydney hates Winter... until she doesn't. Sydney has a health condition that affects her ability to do her job.... until it doesn't. Sydney suddenly goes from being annoyed by Winter to being in love with him.

For me, the pacing of this book was just all over the place. It definitely suffers does too much of the "telling" and not enough of the "showing". I ended up skimming over entire chapters, and to be honest, I didn't feel like I missed a whole lot.

Marie Lu is usually an insta-win for me. And while this book is decent, it's not the usual caliber I've come to expect from her.