Ink of Blood

(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I was originally drawn to this book by the front cover. I felt it was a really cool front cover and since I do like reading erotic romance books, I was happy when I won a copy of this in one of the giveaways.

The concept of the highwayman was a really intriguing one, but I did get a bit confused by what was revealed through the course of the book, since the blurb had seemed to indicate one thing, while it was shown to be something different through the book.

I did like the fact that, although a lot of this book was about the erotic scenes between Zara and Max, there were also some scenes that showed Max’s past. I felt the author did a good job of showing the differences between the two different time frames, though I was a bit confused about the whole reason why Zara ended up visiting the past.

I found the interactions between Zara and Max to be really intriguing. Although a lot of it was about the sex, I felt that there was a lot of care there…and it was really good that things between the two of them were clearly consensual.

I was very unsure about Elizabetha as a character. I felt sympathy towards her at first, but seeing events from her perspective made her a much less sympathetic character… even if I could understand why she was so unhappy with her mother and the highwayman. I was curious to see what would happen to lead up to the events of the present day.

The erotic scenes were mostly good and quite hot in parts, but there were a couple of things that made me cringe, such as the description of Zara’s wrists being messed up and bleeding. But apart from that, it was pretty cool to read two consenting adults exploring different ways to pleasure each other. And it was good to see that there was some plot, rather than just the erotic adventure.

I have to say, though, there were a lot of errors in the writing and a couple of times where I had to pause reading to figure out where a quotation mark was supposed to go, for instance. Still, this was a good book to read and I found it entertaining and the issues of consent were dealt with, which is always important to me. I’m interested to see where Max goes next.