(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
This book was one that grew on me as I read it. I wasn’t so sure of Aldara at first… and I’m still not completely sure what to think of her by the end of the book. There were times I felt sorry for her, but there were other times I felt that she didn’t act like one of the good guys.
I did think that there was a bit too much telling rather than showing at times in the book. I kept being told about this whole love triangle… but I felt there was very little evidence of those emotions in the book. I felt that Tye’s relationship with his father figure was probably the strongest relationship in this book and I would have liked to see more of that, rather than the romance that I really couldn’t get behind.
I felt there was a nice variety of characters, but Eldin really annoyed me. For a knight, I only saw one instance of honour from him… and even that, I didn’t realise was actually intended to be honour. I also found his attitude extremely contradictory. He yelled at Aldara for not trusting someone… and then turned round and said that he’d never trusted that same person. (Which he didn’t).
I actually did find myself quite liking Wyndle as a character, even though some of the writing made her seem (in my opinion) a bit more sexual than I was expecting. I also felt there was a nice variety of races in the world, even if most of them only seemed concerned with themselves.
I found Outoo to be quite an interesting character and I would have liked to see more of his past and history with the other characters. Although this book seemed to be part of a series, I did find it easy to follow… but I found it really difficult to see the villains as that interesting. I couldn’t understand what they were trying to do.
There were some quite emotional scenes in this book, I felt. The danger the characters were in was real and it was good that the author didn’t shy away from the bad things that happened. Although the writing seemed a bit wooden at times to me, I was eventually drawn into the world and there were some surprising things that happened. I would probably read the other books in this series at some point in the future.
Ink of Blood 