(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).
(This review may contain spoilers).
Ideally, I’d give this book 3.5 stars. It was an interesting historical read, but I found it difficult to follow the different storylines at times.
Although this book was the second in a series, I found it fairly easy to follow, even though I don’t have a lot of knowledge about the time this book is set in. Luke’s character was a fairly intriguing one and I liked the relationships and friendships he had with other characters, though I kind of wished more time had been spent showing how those developed.
One of the things that I liked about this book was Luke’s skill with the horses. I wasn’t entirely sure if there was supposed to be a supernatural element to that, though. I felt the book doesn’t really make many of those things clear.
Another thing that worked fairly well was the politics in this book. Some of the characters were thoroughly unlikable and it was a bit disappointing that more time was spent on them. There were also some developments in relationships that weren’t shown, so they didn’t feel too realistic.
Many of the descriptions in this book worked really well and I could see a lot of the events happening in my mind – and I cringed at many of them. I’m not sure if I’ll further explore this series or not. It’s an interesting historical epic, but it does focus a lot on the tyrants.
Ink of Blood 