(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).
(This review may contain spoilers).
In some ways, this book reminded me of Game of Thrones… probably oddly, considering that I’ve only watched the show’s first season and haven’t read the books.
I did find this book to be really well-written. Although I struggled to relate to many of the main characters, I still found the plotline to be fairly engaging and it pulled me into the story fairly quickly.
It was really interesting to see the four different races in Leman. I would have liked a bit more detail about the Game itself… mostly because there only seemed to be one character who knew anything about the Game. If the other races had different beliefs, it would have been nice to see those.
I thought it was really good to have glimpses of the normal lives members of the races had. I really didn’t like Cassius, but it was interesting to see the political side of him as a leader.
I was especially intrigued by how the elves reproduced. It would have been nice to get a few details about how that worked.
I thought the author did a good job of showing the attitudes of the different races towards each other. There was, however, a lot going on with the plotline and there were some times when I wasn’t able to follow on what was going on in the story.
I felt that Binch was a fairly interesting character. It was interesting to see an orc who, although still really violent and stuck in the hierarchy, had a bit more intelligence than the average.
I thought the book was quite well-written and it kept my attention throughout. I don’t know if I would read the next books in the series, though. I had some trouble connecting emotionally with any of the characters.
Ink of Blood 