Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

I have to say, first of all, that I really liked the front cover of this book. It was very appealing and drew me in really easily.

I liked Tia as a narrator. Although her dreams and goals were easy to understand, I thought it was good to see how she had to deal with discovering her father’s real past. While I did think he’d done something really horrible and wrong, I thought the author did a good job of showing that no one’s past redemption.

I really liked the friendship between Tia and Keisha. It was really nice to see how they supported each other and that Tia was an accepted part of Keisha’s family. I really disliked Loretta, but I liked Evette and Dwayne. Dwayne made me smile on more than one occasion and I thought it was obvious how much he and Evette cared about Tia. And I could understand Tia’s questioning about the fact that she liked Dwayne more than her actual father.

I thought Tia’s relationship with her mother came across as quite complicated and deep. While I could understand her mother wanting to protect her, I didn’t think she went the right way about it… and there were times I felt myself aching for Tia, considering that a lot of the townfolk seemed to treat her like a pariah.

I liked Tia and Kenny interacting with each other. There were some really sweet moments between them and although they were still young, I could see them getting even closer as they grow older.

I liked the theme of singing that ran through this book. And it was nice to see how Tia viewed her own singing. There were some quite poignant descriptions of her singing with the choir… and I did think that the rainbow choir was quite a good idea.

I thought this book was quite intense to read. It was very good at tugging at my emotions and making me want to keep reading. It was sad in parts, but there were also scenes that were happy and really moving. I would be interested in reading more books by this author in the future.