Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

I would have easily given this book 5 stars, as it had a lot of potential for even more tension than book one. However, I’m not a fan of love triangles (or love squares, in this instance) and due to the sheer amount of eye rolling I did while reading this… I took one star off the score.

I particularly liked the fact that this book took up right where the previous one left off, though I was a bit disappointed that a lot of the training was glossed over. It was interesting to be able to learn more of the history and culture of Atlantis, along with some of the language… though I didn’t have any of the words Gwen learned stick in my mind.

The best thing about this book was, I felt, the fact that Gwen did have a particular ability… but she wasn’t an over-powered character and spent a lot of the book existing at a below average level. I also liked the fact that there was clear tension between her and Aeson and I spent most of the book waiting for them to get their acts together and do something… although the end of the book took me completely by surprise and not really in a good way.

I would have liked to see a bit more of Gwen’s brother and sister. I was kind of disappointed that she didn’t really think about them in the dangerous situations… and in many ways, I found the motivations of the secondary characters (like Logan and Aeson) to be more intriguing to read about. I liked the fact that Gwen wasn’t the centre of the world… even though I kind of had the impression she expected to be.

There was very little in the way of Gwen’s intelligence in this book… at least not as much as was shown in book one. I especially enjoyed seeing Grace and Blayne grow closer and I would have liked to see more of their relationship.

There were some really good elements of tension and mystery in this book and I did like seeing Gwen get to know other characters. And I especially liked the idea of the zero gravity dancing.

I do want to read the next two books in this series… but I will be quite disappointed if they’re like this one and Gwen continues to lose what made her an interesting character in book one.