I finally finished this book. I loved every moment of it. You should Seriously think about publishing it, I would so bye it. I could read this again and again. Ember just has to be one of my favorite characters that was thought of. Everything from the start to the end you had me in wrapped in the story. It made me mad, Made me laugh, made me sigh with relief, made me smile, and it made me sad and cry. I Seriously could not read Fast enough. When I finally made time to start reading again I couldn't stop. I finished this like in a week. And I kind of Wanna read this again. Lol.

Do keep up the great work.

this is very interesting, very interesting indeed.
I'm intrigued, I just love stories with dragons, like right now I'm reading the The sequel to SKY WOMAN and RUNE KNIGHT By: drahcirwolf, so I have a feeling that I'm going to love this story, and so far, I am right.

I really enjoyed your story.
I like how it went from dragons to pirates to demons and then bam! Witches and all the uglies that come with them.
I like how your writing developed and improved as the book went along.
With a few tweaks and the odd rewrite you would be ready to send it to an agent for a shot at publishing. People love a good dragon story.
Keep up the good work.

I just finished the story, and I loved it! I'm surprised there aren't more follows, but who knows. The character development was well done, and the songs scattered throughout fit the story well. The story didn't follow all the usual cliches, which was refreshing. There is some editing and details to be fixed, but overall Smoke and Mirrors was great!

Found my way back after a little bit of a break. And what a nice chapter to come back to!
~ Zukafu

I've really been enjoying this.

The way Ember and Kaleb's relationship has blossomed from shaky starts to... to well, whatever they would call it at this point. It's been an interesting transition, with the events that have actually transpired and how they have changed their ways with each other.

Though, I'm quite considerably behind with the recent postings, every chapter is a treat which I like to take time over with a cup of tea. Really enjoying it.
~ Zukafu

Hello! I hope it's alright to post a full-fledged review of your story up to this point. Anyway, here goes!

"Smoke and Mirrors" is a romance-fantasy story placed in a medieval setting with some high fantasy elements, namely dragons. The main characters are Ember, a thief from the village of Thebbington Abbey, and her love interest, Kaleb, who is a jeweler in the same village.

Let's start with some well deserved praise. "Smoke and Mirrors" has an excellent sense of description. This is most prominent with character interactions. Small details, like blushing cheeks and gentle breathing, really bring out the emotion in the characters and show the reader what's going on inside their minds.

Which brings us to the other strong point of this story, its use of emotions. All of the characters show how they are feeling and they act accordingly. You really get a good sense of how Ember and Kaleb's relationship is growing. This is a very strong point for a romance story.

However, there are places where "Smoke and Mirrors" could use improvement. The first place that needs some attention is editing. While the story is easy to follow, there are places where the phrasing reads awkwardly or a word is missing. Thankfully, this is easy to fix.

The rest of the things that I think could be improved are nit-picks, but it's the little details that make or break a story. One thing that always gets to me is combat (because I'm weird like that). In chapter 2, Ember has a brief fight with a young swordsman. She easily bests him with her knife and a strong kick. This scene is supposed to show how strong Ember is, but to me it only proves how incompetent the nobles are because they can't hire or train decent protectors. Especially because it is also mentioned that Thebbington Abbey is a well know trade route with a well known bandit (aka: Ember). Again, just a nit-pick, take it as you will.

There are two other topics that I found confusing, but they can be easily addressed. The first one is that the age of the main characters, Ember and Kaleb, is never mentioned. I assume that they're both around 18 or 19, but I can't be sure on that. Lastly, whenever they wake up naked in the forest, it never mentions where they get clothes from afterward (with the exception of Ember's red cloak). I also assume that their clothes appear alongside them or something and that they dress as soon as they wake up, but as this is never mentioned I'm not entirely sure what happens.

In conclusion, "Smoke and Mirrors" is a fun romantic adventure with dragons. It's use of description makes it easy to follow and the characters' emotions really shine through well. However, it could use some editing to take out the awkward phrasing and fix the problem with a few missing words. Overall, well done and keep up the good work!

-Ceotin

Very interesting. Very interesting indeed.
I'm intrigued to know where this is going to lead.
Until next time,
Zukafu

I love your discriptive writing style.