(This review may contain spoilers).
After having been drawn into the lives of several different characters, it was nice to have a return to Yelena. I particularly liked being able to see her interacting with Valek at the beginning of the book… even though I found that the book was really tense to start off with.
I really liked being able to see the characters I recognised from the previous books… and in particular Ari and Janco. I didn’t like the switching between third and first person, though. I found it particularly hard not to be pulled out of the story.
At the same time, it was interesting to see what was going on in both kingdoms. And I really liked seeing Valek’s past. It made him more of an interesting character and I couldn’t help feeling a lot of sympathy for him as a child. It was awful to read about his brothers being killed and I could definitely understand why he was so bent on revenge.
I didn’t much like Ambrose in this book. He seemed to be growing paranoid… and there were certain things that were revealed that made him seem really untrustworthy. I did find Onora to be an interesting character and it was good to note the similarities between her and Valek.
I thought it was good to see Yelena have to cope without her magic. While she didn’t come across as a weak character, I liked being able to see her have to come up with different ways of handling the situations she found herself in.
I really liked seeing the Sandseed horses and although it was disappointing not to see much communication from them, I felt that their intelligence came across really well. There was quite a bit about the politics in the two kingdoms and although there were a lot of different plotlines going on, I thought they all came together really well by the end.
I found this book really easy to read and although I would have liked to see more of Yelena and Valek together, it made sense that those scenes were few and far between. Janco made me laugh… although I did feel for him towards the end of the book. I didn’t get to see nearly enough of him and Ari, though… but I did enjoy seeing Opal and Devlen again, along with Leif and Mara.
Ink of Blood 