(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).
(This review may contain spoilers).
Falconry is something I’ve seen used in a lot of writing or in other media, but I don’t know a lot about it. I thought this was a good, really interesting book. It was clearly a book written for younger readers… but I still found it readable.
I did find the use of the *s and footnotes to be quite distracting, especially since not all of the footnotes were referencing the text marked.
I thought that the start of the book worked quite well. It was interesting to see the different animals talking to each other… and I really enjoyed reading Wendover’s interactions with DJ.
It was interesting to see something of the food chain between the animals… but also the friendship that sprang up between DJ and the birds of prey. I thought it was sweet that DJ developed a crush on Ria… but I would have liked to see more of the interactions between the three of them. I felt that a lot of the friendships that formed between them were glossed over.
I thought it was good to have the opportunity to see things from both Timmy’s perspective and from the animals. I found it really easy to get drawn into the storyline and I liked the personalities shown of the birds and rat.
I liked Ria quite a bit. It was good to see that Timmy recognised the fact she belonged in the wild. I would have liked to know how Timmy got into falconry. I didn’t really see much of a mention of his family… and it would have been good to see more of other human characters.
The illustrations in this book were really well-done and I felt they added a lot to the storyline. It was good to see that some of the animals had their own sense of honour… as well as the fact that they were resourceful and able to work together towards the end of the book.
I plan to pass this book onto my niece, since I think she’d probably enjoy it. And it would also be good to read more about Timmy and his adventures with Wendover in the future.
Ink of Blood 