(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I found this book to be a really fascinating read. Although it was the third in a series, I still found it really easy to follow and I was pulled really easily into the world and its characters.
The front cover was helpful, because it gave me some idea of what the cat people might look like. I found it quite fascinating that there were different types of of big cats used as the basis. For instance, they weren’t all tigers, or leopards, or cheetahs… I would have liked a bit more detail about how it was possible for the different types of big cat to breed together, though.
I was quite intrigued to see that the culture of the cat people had roots in Japanese (and probably Chinese as well) culture. I would have liked to see a bit more detail about how those cultures were formed… as well as what the cultures of the other kingdoms were like.
By the end of the book, I was quite fond of a lot of the characters, even though there were times I got confused by the different names used for them. I really liked Setse and her brother. I would have liked to see a bit more of them together and their history. I also really liked Fallon. Some of what she came out with made me smile.
This book was quite well-written and I could picture a lot of the events happening in my mind. Probably because I came into this world on the third book in, I was very confused about Kirin’s relationship with Sherhann, among other things.
The situation with the Ancestors was pretty interesting and I would have liked to see a bit more about how they related to everything.
It was interesting to note the different characteristics that were linked to the animal parts, such as the movement of the tails and the claws. I did notice that there was a lot of, ‘For the cats were…’ sentences, which I felt was unnecessary, since those sentences were usually preceded by an example of what the cats were. (Superstitious, for instance).
At some point in the future (when I have much less to read), I would like to read the other books in this series. This was an engaging, fascinating world and it would be nice to see where the characters go next.
Ink of Blood 