(I received a free copy of this book from Bethany House, through NetGalley, in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
Ideally, I’d like to give this book 4.5 stars – not quite 4; but not quite 5, either.
It did take me a couple of pages to properly get into this book. I wasn’t sure what to make of it at the beginning, but I was eventually able to empathise with the characters and felt better able to understand them.
This book is part of a series, a fact that I didn’t realise until after I began reading and saw there were references to past events. Even so, though, this book was fairly easy to read as a standalone work.
This was a fairly entertaining read. I liked the use of fairy creatures in this book and the characters were really intriguing. There were some bittersweet, slightly emotional scenes that affected me even though I hadn’t seen the events leading up to them.
There were a few things that I didn’t understand – the whole wolf thing was a bit confusing, though by the end, it did make a bit more sense.
I did like the religious allegory in this book, though that might be more because I am a Christian. There were quite a lot of relationships that I liked and would have liked to see further explored – Foxbrush’s relationship with his cousin, for instance.
The wood almost seemed like a character in itself and I quite liked that. The creatures were interesting and diverse and this book has made me want to read the other books in this series. When I looked on Amazon, I realised I had book one in this series already on my Kindle. I will read it at some point – and in the future at some point, I intend to buy the other books in this series.
If you like this type of book, I do recommend it. There are some recognisable fairy tale scenes, but nothing that detracts from the story itself. It was definitely a good, entertaining read and one I expect I would be prepared to read again in the future, which is what I do with books I particularly enjoy.
Ink of Blood 