(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).
(This review may contain spoilers).
Ideally, I’d have given this book 3.5 stars – it’s not quite 4, but not quite 3, either.
The cover, although it looked a bit juvenile, did appeal to me when I was looking at giveaways. I think the cover did a really good job of showing a representation of the story, without giving too much away.
The use of first person worked particularly well and did a good job of drawing me into the story. Skip had a history and relationships with the other characters that really made me able to relate to him. I have to say, though, that I did notice a couple of slip-ups where Hill’s thoughts were described – and Skip wouldn’t have known them.
The science fiction aspects worked particularly well and it was interesting to learn more about the different alien races, though there were a few info-dumps about the races.
Parts of the book were especially intense and emotional. I did like Skip’s relationship with his brother and I would have liked to see more of that – I’m a sucker for good brother relationships.
I also felt that there wasn’t much of a mystery involved here, but the characters did make up for that. They were interesting and well-rounded with realistic strengths and weaknesses.
I did notice quite a few errors in the writing. I feel it would have benefited from another read-through before being published.
I’m certainly intrigued enough to want to read more books in this series. It would be good to see more of these characters.
Ink of Blood 