Ink of Blood

(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I did think that the blurb of this book sounded really intriguing, so I ignored the slight misgivings I had about the romance and requested a copy.

I felt that the book had a lot of potential, but the main romance didn’t really grab me. It came across too much as an insta!love connection and I felt that Kallisto was a rather bland character. I did find Seti to be a really interesting person and there were enough details about his past and relationships to the other characters that he came across as quite well-defined.

This book came across as part of a series and not the first book. There were characters mentioned but not really described. When Kallisto talks about her brothers, I was expecting to get to know some of them… but the book’s written as if assuming the readers have prior knowledge.

I liked the whole concept of the different worlds and it was good to learn more about the Chaos that Seti was battling with. And there were times I was able to empathise with him quite strongly in the book.

I do think that the book could have done with some serious editing. There were a lot of errors and clunky writing that a beta reader would have been able to catch and make the book more readable.

I found Azazel to be a really interesting character and I felt that his romance was much more believable. I would have liked it if there had been more focus on the two of them. I also would have liked to see more of Morgan’s character.

I did feel there was a bit too much telling, rather than showing, in this book. There were very few surprises or twists.

I did like the use of illustrations in this book, but there should have been more descriptions of the earlier characters. I didn’t think it was necessary to write a line from the narration under those illustrations. I did particularly like the one of the fairy, though.

I don’t know if I’d read any more books by this author in the future. It would depend on the plot and if there’d clearly been an editor.