(I received a free copy of this book from Curiosity Quills Press in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
This book was almost four stars, due to the fact that I did really find this book an entertaining, easy read. However, there were quite a few things that made me decide I couldn’t award it with the extra star.
I did like the characters and I felt myself pulled into the story very quickly. I did, however, feel that things moved far too quickly between Paige and Johnathan. The story skipped over long periods of time and I felt that a lot of their relationship was glossed over when I would have liked to see more of it developing. Because once I got over the incredibly short time they seemed to fall in love, I actually found their relationship to be quite sweet.
I liked the friendships that formed between the five characters. It was good how they came across as a family very quickly and I especially liked the bantering that went on between them. It was also good to see that they did go through the consequences of getting hurt and making mistakes, rather than being absolutely perfect with their abilities first time round.
The descriptions in this book were pretty awesome. I could really see a lot of the events happening inside my head; in particular the whole hallucinations thing. Some of the descriptions really made me wince in sympathy with the characters.
Foreshadowing. There was very little of that going on. Certain things seemed to only show up when there was a need for them – i.e. right before one of the characters is attacked, she reflects on how good it is that one of their number has training in martial arts and has been showing the group. Showing some of said training scenes would have been a whole lot better.
The whole thing with the soul-gazing is something I have seen done before, but it was handled in quite a unique way and I felt it worked particularly well.
Skipping over passages of time is something I did mention before, but putting, ‘After two weeks…’ in the same paragraph, with nothing to denote passage of time, gets confusing and disorientating. Also, if a book is written in first person and that character is not a mind reader, they shouldn’t be describing what the other characters are thinking/feeling.
I do have the second book on my Kindle and I will read it. I do, however, feel that this book could have been improved a bit.
Ink of Blood 