(I received a free copy of this book, through NetGalley, in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I was quite intrigued by the plot of this book, so when I had a chance to read it through NetGalley, I immediately leaped at that chance. And although there were some parts of this book that were disjointed, I was able to follow the storyline quite easily.
I did really like Alwen as a character and her son, daughter and husband were perhaps the strongest characters in this book. I also liked Odwain, to a certain extent, but one of the later scenes with him kind of rubbed me completely wrong, because it seemed to completely derail his character.
It was really nice to see the main character a woman, rather than a teenage girl. Although there’s nothing wrong with teenage heroines, I do find that a lot of books with them as the central character to be Mary Suish.
One of the biggest issues I had with this book was that there was no air of mystery. It’s made clear straight away who the bad guys are, but although there was some attempt made to humanise one of them, I didn’t know enough about her to see why she’d gone in that direction. And the good guys didn’t seem prepared to do anything, even when knowing who the bad guys were.
I really liked Rhys as a character. I felt that the story could have focused a bit more on him, but I really liked his and his sister’s relationship with their father and mother. It was good to see an established family who actually cared about each other.
I have to be honest… I didn’t really understand the whole point of the prophecy. Why this king in particular? How did they know that this was the right time? These were all questions that could have been answered during the course of the book and I was disappointed not to see that kind of explanation.
Fergus and Finn were interesting characters, but it took a while to figure out what their relationship to each other was. I did like the use of the fay in the book and I felt that the author kept them true to the original mythos.
I would like to read a sequel to this book, but I’d like to see more explanation as to what was going on. By the end of the book, I’m still not entirely sure who the prophecy’s meant to be ultimately benefiting and why.
Ink of Blood 