(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I always find Groundhog Day-style stories quite interesting to read… and I thought it was good to see that the focus was on a mother and her son. While I did get a bit confused with the constant time slips, it didn’t take long for me to become absorbed in the story.
I did think the first scene of the story did a really good job of setting the scene and although it took a while for the story to catch up with the first scene at the beginning, it was a good journey to take and be able to get to know the characters… though I did feel that many of my perceptions of the secondary characters were coloured by how Dawn saw them.
I found Dawn an easy character to empathise with, even though there were problems… but then again, parents aren’t perfect. And I found it interesting to see how Tommy put voice to that.
Although it took quite a long time for the storyline to reach the point where Dawn was reliving the time over and over, I did appreciate the opportunity to get to know the characters… I just felt that the main plot of the book wasn’t given very much time in the actual story.
I was quite confused about how Kylie fit in the whole book, but that did make more sense as the book went on. I did also like the opportunity to see how the slips worked before the main one occurred… and I thought there were some really good scenes in the book, despite the difficulty in staying involved in the storyline when it kept flashing back to Dawn’s childhood.
I think I would have liked to see a bit more of some of the secondary characters, especially Tommy’s father. There were also some really good tense moments in this book, especially when the slips occur.
I did like the ending of the book, although I was still left with a lot of unanswered questions. Some of the things didn’t make much sense, but I was still drawn into the storyline and I would be interested in reading more books by this author in the future.
Ink of Blood 