2015 Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention: Cinder and the Smoke by Geonn Cannon

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Cinder and the Smoke by Geonn Cannon
Lesbian Historical Fiction
Publisher: Supposed Crimes LLC (March 1, 2015)
Amazon Kindle: Cinder and the Smoke

In nineteenth century New York, safes aren’t living up to their name. A thief so wily, so impossible to capture the the police call her “the Smoke” has been targeting the wealthy. In reality the Smoke is a woman named Kezia Cyr, a woman born in prison, stolen from her mother, and raised by runaways and pickpockets. When her emotions causes a job to blow up in her face, Kezia’s adoptive family scatters and she is left to avenge those she’s lost.

The Smoke may finally meet her match in Pinkerton Agent Shelby Button who earned the moniker “Cinder” for running into a burning building to capture a criminal. Button finds Kezia’s trail and refuses to let her prey go without a fight.

With a decade-old murder to avenge, Kezia will stop at nothing to correct her past mistakes, and Agent Button is willing to trek across the country to bring the phantom Smoke to justice once and for all.


Good vs Evil. This book actually had me rooting for the criminal. Kenzie Cyr, aka Kieran Scott, aka Smoke, was a troubled character who struggled with her identity, her sexuality, her past, her present, the people in her life, her skills, her need for revenge, and her desire for stability, wealth, love, and acceptance. Traveling through the journey of her life with her, experiencing her griefs, her triumphs, her failures, her betrayals, her pains, her happiness, all served to show the author's wonderful writing style. The way the setting was described so elegantly, the development of the plot, and the way it ended so satisfyingly, was refreshing to me. This story was new and the historical aspect was spot on and accurate. I sincerely enjoyed the story, the tension that was created at different points, the humor, the sensuality, the angst, and even the hope. There was only the few instances of missing words and repetitive phrases that threw me out of the story that prevented me from giving this book a perfect score.