Ink of Blood

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I found this book to be a really entertaining read. Although I felt it was aimed more at a younger audience, that didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of the book.

I thought the writing style was interesting, with the sense I was being told the story by the author. It was also interesting to see that there was a mix of different genres. Although there was a lot going on, I didn’t find myself getting confused very much.

I would have liked to be able to see more of the different children in the orphanage. It wasn’t until towards the end that I was given the opportunity to see a few more of the children.

I really liked Edwin. Even though he was a bit dim at times in the book, I felt sorry for him and I didn’t think he was treated very nicely at times. I also thought it was interesting to see parts of the story from Leopold’s and Edwin’s POV. It was quite amusing to see how they viewed things like planes.

While it was interesting to be able to see what was going on back at the orphanage at times, I did get a bit thrown by how fast the scenes kept changing. I also found it difficult to see many of the other characters as a bit more well-rounded.

I did think the plot of this book had quite a unique spin to it. I wasn’t sure I particularly liked the two Olives for a while, since they didn’t seem to fight very hard to stay with the children. I did like Mr. Penny, even if I didn’t get to see a lot of him.

I liked the slight element of mystery and there were quite a few bits of tension in this book. I found it easy to read and it did succeed in drawing me in. I thought that Timothy in particular was a well-rounded character… but Edwin was especially amusing, even if he was a bit pitiful at times.

I found that Thomas’s character did grow on me, even though I didn’t like him at first. It was good to see how the plots connected to each other and although I don’t think parts of this book are suitable for young children, I think older children might get something out of it. In the future, I expect I’ll be happy to read more books by this author.