Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

In Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Taylor paints such a mysterious, complex and imaginative world it’s difficult to describe in short.  Some descriptions may seem typical of a young adult novel but it’s a story you haven’t come across yet.  

Tattooed and blue-haired Karou doesn’t understand her life.  She is filled with questions she can’t get answers to and is always feeling unsettled.  Karou was raised by creatures that would scare most people but is all she knows as family.  Her foster father, Brimstone, is a ram/dragon cross and wishmonger of the Chimaera world.  Without explanation he often sends Karou on errands through magical portals around the world to collect human and animal teeth from traders.  While off on these errands Karou notices mysterious smoldering handprints seared into the portal doors.  This only creates more questions for Karou, but when she tries to find out for herself what all her life’s mysteries mean she angers Brimstone so much that he banishes her from entering the Chimaera world again.  Losing what little family Karou had has been devastating especially when she runs into an angel that has his heart set on destroying the Chimaera world.