(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I like fantasy books. Fantasy is one of my favourite genres. So when I was looking at potential giveaways to enter, the front cover of this book, coupled with the blurb, drew me in.
The idea of the Arbor was a pretty intriguing one. The explanation for the Selected eventually made sense, though I still wasn’t completely happy with certain things that happened throughout the book in regards to the tree.
Although the three different timelines were a little confusing at first, I did grow used to the style of writing fairly easily. I found myself caring about what happened to the characters and I could empathise with most of them – Tahir and Osrin in particular. Sarra was, I felt, the weakest of the characters. She was very passive, rather than the strong sort of heroine I prefer.
There were a couple of characters who could be termed as ‘bad’, but they were more well-rounded than I’d expected. Of course, there were others who were completely unlikable, but at least those were few and far between.
Although there were quite a few characters in this book, there were only a few occasions where I was confused between the minor characters – and that was more in the third timeline, rather than the other two.
I really liked the relationships that formed between the characters, though there were a few contradictory moments that I noticed. In particular, I liked Tahir’s closeness to the two adults guiding him. There was something very sweet about that.
Although this book was the second in a series, I did find it easy to follow. The characters weren’t perfect, but they were well-written and I cared about what happened to them.
I would definitely read the preceding book to this and any later books in this series in the near future.
Ink of Blood 