Ink of Blood

(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

This did take me a little while to read, but that was because the book was so long, rather than being hard to read.

The idea behind this book was particularly intriguing and I felt myself pulled in almost from the start, though I did find it somewhat difficult to picture the particular characters at first. The bloodlines thing made sense as I read more, but it was hard to picture exactly what type of creature had been introduced to begin with.

I did like Yama at first, but kind of went off him a bit as the story progressed and he grew up. By the end of the trilogy, I was finding it somewhat difficult to follow him. I also still have little idea of what exactly was going on in the end – there just seemed to be a very circular thing to it and I think the ending could have been modified to make it a bit more satisfactory.

I particularly liked Pandaras’ character in this book. He grew up in the book as well, but still kept to his true personality. One thing in particular he says really struck a chord with me – and I think it’s something I should keep in mind when thinking of certain plots. I won’t say exactly what he says, but it’s in response to a comment made about dying to save the world.

I think my favourite part of this book was Pandaras’ friendship and utter loyalty towards Yama. I’ve always liked books where a true friendship forms and it endeared Pandaras to me even more.

I believed more in Yama’s relationship with Tamora than with Derev. I just couldn’t really picture the emotions he had for Derev being all that real.

The idea of all of the bloodlines descending from animals was a pretty intriguing one. I could recognise some of the species’ ancestors, but not all of them. The science fiction aspect worked particularly well, though there was quite a bit that I had trouble understanding.

The two stories at the end were interesting, but I didn’t feel that the second one added a great deal. If it was meant to reveal something new, I didn’t see it.

I would look at other books by this author in the future. I did find this one an entertaining read and there was an awful lot of world-building that clearly went on with this, even if I did feel it got a bit bogged down with detail at time.