(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
Although I’m not too sure of the cover of this book (I’m not sure it fits well with the plot of the story), I did find this book to be really entertaining to read.
I liked the elements of fantasy in this book, even though Livi was more or less a normal person to start. As a heroine, I thought she was a likable character… and even though I would have liked to see more of her training expanded upon, instead of being glossed over, it was good to see that she didn’t just do everything perfectly… that she had to train and she clearly didn’t have the skills straight away.
There was a lot about the world in this book that was intriguing. I didn’t really like Benny’s character. He was all right at first, but the way he spoke to Livi was… pretty awful.
I really did like both Hickory and Tess as characters. While I wish I could have seen some of their interactions live, instead of summarised, what I was able to see of them made them really intriguing. And it was nice to see that Tess was really tough.
I liked Violet and it was interesting to see the cause of her fever… though I did think there were some confusing aspects to it. I also liked the fact that not everything was black and white… there did seem to be shades of grey involved.
Wallace was an interesting character. I liked the way he interacted with Livi… though I did think he kept shifting personality slightly. There were some good elements of foreshadowing in this book, too, I thought.
It was good that there were some elements of mystery in this book. And it was also good that there was the opportunity to see some of the politics that were going on… even though parts of it were a bit confusing.
I’d be interested in seeing more about this world and the characters. I liked the mooncalfs and it was interesting to see something about the world itself… like the Inferno, which was especially spooky. While I didn’t like Benny, I did like a lot of the other characters Livi met and interacted with.
Ink of Blood 