(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I felt this book worked fairly well as a children’s book, but I did think that the narration of the main character of his past would have worked better to be shown in the book, rather than told about.
I did like Dinky as a character, but I did think that some of the speech used in the book was a bit adult in nature and not always good for all ages.
I did really like the illustrations used in the book. They were really nicely done and some of them were quite beautiful. It was also nice to see how Dinky viewed his previous place as different to the one he ended up in.
Some of this book assumes knowledge of horses and I think it would benefit from a bit more detail about certain things, such as the name Dinky as a foal is called. It was also nice to see the other horses in the book, but I would have liked a bit more detail with them. I felt that dialogue was used a bit too much and I would have liked to ‘see’ more of the world.
I did think it was interesting that there were questions raised in this book that were potentially deep ones. It would be good to see where the author takes those questions in the future books in the series.
I do think my niece would like this book and I do intend to pass it on to her. At least, I do think she’ll really like the illustrations and Dinky’s character.
Ink of Blood 