(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I very much enjoyed reading this sequel to Darkness Watching. I found Ashlyn easy to continue relating to and it was nice to see her interacting with her friends… though I could definitely understand how hard it must have been to juggle her two separate lives.
I felt a bit sorry for Conrad, even though I did think he was acting a bit like a stalker. I felt a bit sorry for Ash to have to try and deal with him… even though I think that was something else piled up on everything that was going on with her.
I have to be honest… I came very close to rolling my eyes when vampires were mentioned straight away. If demons are over-used in fiction, vampires are even more so… and that was before they sparkled. But it was good to see that the vampire curse was something entirely different to the myths that were perpetuated. I thought it was a unique twist to have it be that way… though it would have been good to see more of an explanation as to how the curse was passed on.
I was disappointed to still not see much of a brotherly relationship between Cyrus and Leo… though I did like seeing Leo and Ash interacting together. The love triangle wasn’t really much of one, so I could tolerate the two guys being romantically interested in Ash.
I did feel a bit sorry for one of the bad guys in this book. Even though I wouldn’t say that this person could have been redeemed, I think it would have been good to see a possibility with them. It sounded like they’d had a rough life.
There wasn’t much of a mystery in this book… it was kind of obvious who the bad guy was fairly early on. I didn’t really like Claudia in this book as much as the first, since she seemed to be seducing other characters just to get information.
Berenice and Howard are… interesting characters. I’m not sure what I think about them. I did think there were a lot of members of the Venantium who weren’t really shown… it was like a lot of them were the red shirts.
I did enjoy seeing Ash and her friends. I have the third book on my Kindle and will be reading it in the next couple of days.
Ink of Blood 