(This review may contain spoilers).
Having been a fan of this author since reading Bitten, I was immediately interested in reading the start of this next series. Though having no connection with the other series’ by this same author, I still liked the blurb when I read it and I did find the book fairly easy to read… even though I didn’t really like the constant switching between first and third person. I found it rather distracting to keep coming out of Olivia’s head and then going back with knowledge she really shouldn’t have.
I was very intrigued by the idea of a woman finding out she was adopted and that her parents had been convicted of being serial killers. There were a lot of tense scenes in this book, even though I didn’t really have any answers or real explanation by the time I reached the end of this first one.
It was interesting to get a glimpse of Olivia’s volunteer work before the main plot of the story started. I did feel that the journalists in this book were painted in a very poor light as a whole… and I spent most of the book with a strong dislike of Gabriel. Even though I did find out bits and pieces of his past, it didn’t endear him to me… and the parts of the book written from his perspective made him come across as kind of psychotic. At the same time, I did find the conflicts between him and Olivia intriguing, especially when it came to her refusal to fall back on her parents’ money.
It was interesting to have glimpses of Olivia’s early history mixed in with the strange dreams she was having, but I was a bit on edge in regards to the fact most of the people in Cainsville seemed to know a whole lot more than they were telling.
I did like learning about the omens, but I felt that some of the things were repeated too many times. For instance, it wasn’t necessary to be told repeatedly that poppies were a death omen. I felt that a lot of subtlety was lost… and possibly that there was too much going on in one book. However, I did enjoy seeing Olivia adopt the cat.
I wasn’t really sold on Ricky as a character, but I didn’t like Gabriel or James, either. I’ve ordered book two… but ideally, I’d like to see less romance and more character development.
Ink of Blood 