(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).
(This review may contain spoilers).
The concept behind this book was a really intriguing one, but I did struggle a bit to connect to the characters.
It was interesting to see the legends detailed at the start of each story and see how they fit in with the stories that were detailed. I didn’t feel like enough detail was given about the characters for me to properly care about what happened to them.
It was interesting to see some aspects of the culture in this book, but there were words used in the original language… which, considering a book set in another country is one you just assume would use that language, always seems pointless. (It’s a bit like having random Japanese words in a story that’s written in English but set in Japan).
I found the second storyline to be quite intriguing. It was good to see how the whole sins and repentance thing was dealt with… and that one of the characters still clung so much to the fact that he was right, he refused to learn the lesson he was being taught.
I couldn’t really get into the mysteries, to be honest. A lot of them just involved talking/sensing things without said things being indicated. The only possible exception was Honor… and that didn’t really seem to have a proper ending.
The last story was interesting, but I felt that the ending didn’t really work too well.
I did like the correlation and connections between the stories. If I could have connected to the characters more, I’m sure I would have enjoyed the book better.
Ink of Blood 