(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I thought this book was a really entertaining read… though I didn’t realise that the setting wasn’t actually Earth for quite a long way into the book. While it made sense that there wouldn’t be a lot of detail about the world from someone who’s a native… I did get quite confused for a while there.
I liked Sterling’s character and it was interesting to see him beginning to gain the memories of his time on Noba… though I was confused by how it all worked at first. It was good to see that there was an explanation given for why he didn’t remember it, though.
It was good to see Sterling’s relationship with Grey and Kip and I did feel a lot of sympathy for what he was going through with his mother… though what was revealed later did mean that made a lot of sense.
I wasn’t really keen on the way the book slipped over into Tetra’s first person perspective, especially since the shifts weren’t always clearly marked. I did find it interesting to learn more about Tetra and how different she was in comparison to Sterling. It was interesting to see how the bond worked between them… though I did feel that there was an element of telling rather than showing.
It was interesting to see Tetra’s relationship with Kip and how her feelings grew for him, but there was too much glossing over both with him and with Sterling. I would have liked to see more of their conversations, so that the evolution of the feelings would seem more natural.
I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t more in the way of action in this book. I would have liked to see what Tetra was actually doing, but most of the book just seemed to involve her trying to fit into Sterling’s life. While that was interesting, I had the feeling she forgot what she was there for most of the time and too much importance was placed on the romance.
I’m not sure I’ll go out of my way to read the next book/s in the series, but it would be nice to see more of Sterling and Tetra.
Ink of Blood 