(This review may contain spoilers).
When I originally read the blurb of this book, I thought it sounded like a really interesting idea. I found Nemesis to be really engaging, even though a lot of how she acted at first was very savage and wild. It was interesting to see how she viewed her relationship to Sidonia… but more than that, I liked seeing how Sidonia viewed Nemesis.
It was really intriguing to see how things went with Nemesis trying to learn how to act like Sidonia; at least as close to doing so as she could. I almost forgot that she was a more wild breed of human, until she acted with single-minded purpose to protect Sidonia.
I liked the fact that, although there was some romance towards the end of the book, I didn’t feel like it defined Nemesis. She didn’t seem to change outside of what felt like a natural evolution of her character and although she had to act the part, I liked seeing her able to take care of herself, even if she did have to hide what she was and just how capable she was.
There was a lot of action in this book, but I liked that there was a lot of intrigue, too. I really didn’t like the Emperor or his mother, even though I was able to understand her a bit better by the end of the book. And while I did see some of the things in this book coming, there were enough surprises that the plot didn’t seem boring.
I did think there were a lot of contradictions in the society and I found the Emperor’s attitude towards technology to be quite hard to understand. It was interesting to get glimpses of the other families, but I would have liked to see a bit more depth to some of the secondary characters. I felt like Nemesis should have been trying harder to make allies, at least, even though I knew she would struggle at making friends. But it was nice to see her start to form connections to characters other than Sidonia.
I found this book entertaining and easy to read. Nemesis was easy to relate to and I liked the way she evolved as a character. I probably would read the next book/s in this series in the future.
Ink of Blood 