Blog Tour: No Smoke Without Fire by Claire S Lewis (Thriller, 9/10E)

7th May 2020, Aria, 306 pages, Ebook, Review copy 

Book summary

Celeste has been running from her past for seven years. But now her past has found her. 

For seven years, Celeste has battled her guilt and shame over the tragic events that led to her little brother's death. But when her high-school boyfriend comes back into her life just as she gains a stalker, she wonders if there's more to the story than she realized.

Celeste is determined to discover the truth – but she's about to find out that when you play with fire, you get burned...

Nayu's thoughts 

My initial thoughts were that she was mostly innocent about her brother's death, she was no angel but she wasn't evil either. By the end I didn't know what to think. I liked the way that her stalker's viewpoint was put at the beginning of the chapter, with her story straight after, and it made me feel sorry for her. But bit by bit Celeste did things which were most definitely not good deeds. Yes I understand that she was angry to her ex teenage boyfriend, but what she did was criminal damage. Some of things that the stalker recorded were so awful that I wondered how she got away with it, and why she did them knowing that her actions could affect young lives. 

For a while I thought her ex-boyfriend was the stalker - it made total sense to me until the point I realised it was someone else. Even when the truth came out near the end, in moments that make me doubt Celeste's sanity and be unsure of who was speaking the truth, I was confused about what really happened. I understand what happened with her brother, but the reason for her stalker simply didn't seem to be explained, unless I was too tired when I read it and misunderstood the revelation. In most cases I would reread the book in time, but what happens with her stalker happened to a friend at university, and I just can't relive that. 

Overall the story is brilliant: I couldn't stop reading it, Celeste seems both vulnerable and an instigator of trouble. I usually feel sorry for a protagonist like her, and want her to be safe, but I couldn't because of the decisions she takes which walk her towards being a crazy person herself, like her stalker.. Perhaps her brother's death meant that she would be forever tainted, that she was predisposed to reckless behaviour and revenge. Knowing she was being stalked was terrifying, as I wanted to warn her to be careful, in case events turned sour and she got in trouble with the stalker. She is a character I won't forget for a long time, even if I am unsure of what was real and what was in her head. 

My favourite character has to be the long suffering Meghan, who was super kind to Celested, all things considered. Without her Celeste wouldn't have survived well. I did want to hit Celeste's friends on the head for being insensitive, even if they didn't know all the facts the should have been more considerate of how she was feeling. I did like how the themes of domestic violence were explored, that everything can seem fine on the outside of a home but the inside is a different matter.

Be sure to check out other stops on the tour! Which has a part 2 shown below