(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I’ve seen vampires used a lot in fiction to date and it’s always interesting to see the different kind of spins people put on the popular vampire myth… even though I do think vampires have been over-used to date.
I know the historical account of the Countess Bathory and I felt this book was not only an interesting twist on the vampire story, but also on the story of the Countess… despite the amount of poetic license that was taken throughout the book.
The start of the book was intriguing and enough to draw me into the plot. The character of Kati was quite an interesting one and I liked seeing her interacting with the other characters in the book. It was pretty creepy to see the Countess’ home and what went on there through Kati’s eyes. I was surprised that the whole book wasn’t written in first person – although the first chapter was intriguing, I felt it wasn’t entirely clear who the POV character was or how they knew all of this information.
The journals that Kati had to bind were quite intriguing to read, but I couldn’t quite see the evolution from the the character of Theodora to the way she was in Kati’s time.
The goals of the Countess, once revealed, made her more of an interesting character, I felt… if still clearly a villain. I would have liked to see some more of the servants in the castle and also have a few more details of the other girls attending the school.
For the most part, I felt the author did a good job of setting the scene historically… but I did feel there were a number of occasions where the language was a bit too modern. There were also a couple of times where the journal entries weren’t clearly indicated and I had some confusion before realising Kati was reading them again.
There were a lot of disturbing scenes in this book and I found myself cringing at times. The descriptions came across really well. I thought good use was made of the other historical figures, too.
I probably would read the sequel to this book at some point in the future. It would be interesting to see where the author goes with the storyline next.
Ink of Blood 