Ink of Blood

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this book when I started reading it. I obviously wasn’t expecting a book that was anything like historically accurate… but I did find it an interesting alternate version of the King Arthur myths, especially when it came to the football teams.

I hadn’t read the first book in this series, but I did like the fact that there were several different storylines going on and that there was a lot about the politics of running a kingdom. I found it easy to relate to Moxie’s frustration about not being able to make any changes… but I would have liked the opportunity to see more of her interactions with other people in her kingdom.

I thought it was good to see the different versions of the knights, but I did feel that there was a bit of repetition – like Galahad being a judgmental Christian was repeated several times, as well as Tristan being an awful poet.

I would have liked some more details about the minor characters, such as Rowan and her relationship with Merlin. It was good to see something of the Lady of the Lake, but I would have liked to see a bit more of her and how she fit into everything.

I really liked the fact that Moxie trained and couldn’t do everything perfectly. I enjoyed seeing her interactions with Harry and although I didn’t really feel that the relationship between him and Moxie was very believable, I did like their interactions and that Moxie wasn’t prepared to let Harry walk over her… even though her stubbornness did mean that she ended up missing out on meals more often than not. Then again, by the end of the book, I did feel that she’d grown and matured quite a lot.

I thought it was interesting to see Merlin trying to read the personalities of the other characters through the ink blots and how it enabled him to know something of what the other characters were thinking.

I don’t really understand much about football, but it was interesting to see how it caused the people to use the game to solve issues and conflicts. There were a few amusing moments in this and I did find this book an entertaining read. I probably would read the other book/s in this series in the future.