Universal nabs Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Earlier this month we brought you word that Paramount was eyeing Laini Taylor’s “Daughter of Smoke and Bone”, but today Universal has announced that they’ve picked it up instead.

The book was only published this September, the first of a planned trilogy, because fantasy novels can’t be standalone anymore.

“My goal is always to write stories that readers will want to climb inside of and live in, and which – I hope – will allow them to just lose themselves in the page,” said Laini Taylor in a press release. “It is a hugely thrilling prospect to think about Universal and filmmakers translating my world onscreen and giving it a second life in such a grand way. I’m over the moon.”

“Daughter of Smoke & Bone” is available in over 25 countries and has amassed a fair amount of critical acclaim, appearing on everything from Amazon’s top Ten Books of 2011 list and New York Times Notable Children’s Books of 2011.

The second book will hit in September 2012, and you can bet that Universal is hoping it will be just as successful.

The synopsis of the first book-

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky. 

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low. 

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war. 

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious “errands”; she speaks many languages–not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When one of the strangers–beautiful, haunted Akiva–fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?