(This review may contain spoilers).
I had the chance to meet Max in the previous book, as well as earlier in the series as ‘the dragon in Sanctuary’. Although I didn’t know anything about his past (or remembered if I did), I enjoyed the opportunity to get to know him.
I really enjoyed the feeling of brotherhood that ran through this particular book, even where Falcyn was involved. I wanted to hate Seraphina and while I did at first, I did feel a lot of sympathy for her as I got to know her as a character and saw things from her perspective. However, I was glad to see that she knew and accepted what she’d done was wrong.
I was glad to see a return to humour with the characters like Fang, whose book had ruined him as a character. I loved seeing the banter between him and Fury especially… and there were some occasions I found myself laughing out loud.
I do think that the world’s grown a bit too big and confusing. While I knew the main characters reasonably well, there were constant changes in the scenes and POVs that confused me a bit. And I’m still not sure how Merlin (as a woman) fits into all of it.
There were a lot of really tense scenes in this book. I especially liked how Maxis interacted with his dragonets… and that they clearly wanted to meet him. I was very amused by the brother/sister banter that went on between them and it was obvious how much they cared for each other… and it was nice to see Maxis’ son have a sister who wanted to protect him.
I felt there were quite a few emotional scenes in this book and I was able to empathise with the two main characters really well. I did notice that there was one occasion where one of the characters were captured, but although they escaped, it wasn’t made clear how that happened, since the scene had ended with them helpless.
It was good to see how the tension between Arcadian and Katagaria started and I really didn’t like the King and how he treated the dragons he’d taken. I was a bit confused about the gallu demons and Apollo… but I’m now eager to read the next book and see what will happen with Illarion.
Ink of Blood 