(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I actually found this book to be quite a good, interesting, entertaining read.
I can’t speak for the historical accuracy of this novel. I only know bits and pieces of the time this novel is set in. But I found the characters to be interesting and well-written and the storyline to be engaging, one that kept me reading.
The amount of characters with similar-sounding names was a bit confusing, though. By the end of the book, I was struggling to differentiate between the different people.
I really liked the relationships between the characters, especially Leofwine and his wife. The scenes between them were particularly sweet and it was nice to see that real love had grown from the arranged marriage.
I felt that the author did a really good job of showing the politics that was in the kingdom. I also thought that it came across really well how difficult Leofwine found his injury and partial blindness – as well as how he learned to compensate for that disability. Of course, anyone who wasn’t whole in that time would have a much more difficult time of it than someone with that kind of injury in modern day.
The descriptions in the book were really good and I was able to see a lot of the events happening in my mind, especially when it came to the fighting scenes. I did, however, notice quite a few errors in the books – apostrophes used when something was supposed to be plural; and Hunter changed gender at one point.
I think I’d definitely be interested in reading more books in this series. It would be good to see what else is going to happen.
Ink of Blood 