Ink of Blood

(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

It was interesting to read a book that’s normally outside of the realm of genres I normally read. When I entered to win this book on a giveaway, I thought the concept was a really interesting one. As someone who had a parent who was an alcoholic, I could recognise the signs of Kate being one. I felt the author showed she had a problem particularly well… and not just in that she showed up to an interview drunk. I did think her friends didn’t try hard enough to help at the beginning, though.

I felt that, for a lot of the first part of the book, Kate was kind of a blank slate when it came to her family and history. I learned more about her as the book went on, which I felt was a really good way of doing it. In a way, it felt like I was becoming friends with Kate… despite her problems and how insistent she was that she really didn’t have any problems.

I felt the author did a good job of showing the moral struggle Kate went through when she was trying to decide what the right thing to do was. I didn’t think I would like Amber as a character… but I felt she grew along with Kate. There wasn’t a perfect resolution for her story arc by the end of the book, but I felt hopeful that things would pick up.

It was interesting to see the different people who were also in rehab and how their fame had affected them in certain cases. It struck me as quite compelling that one of them was a heroin addict who had become addicted because of research she was trying to do for her book.

I didn’t really like Saundra as a character. I felt that she was a bit too close to harsh – and I felt that she didn’t really respect her patients’ wishes. Yes, having a support system is important. Not everyone has a family who cares about them. And not everyone becomes addicted because of things in their past.

That was really the only thing about this book that I didn’t like. I liked Kate’s relationship with Henry and I enjoyed the atmosphere of this book. I’d be interested in checking out more books by this author in the future.

(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I did think that the front cover and the blurb of this book sounded really intriguing. And I did like Llad as a character through a lot of the book. However… I have to say, I was somewhat disappointed.

I felt like I’d missed a lot of the story. I was expecting to be shown how Llad developed his powers… but it was all explained through exposition, which wasn’t really interesting and had me skim-reading a whole lot of it.

I did find Llad’s relationship with some of the other characters to be quite interesting, especially with Brite. But I was confused by how Brite had changed so much… but there were huge passages of time (and enormous amounts of character development) that were glossed over.

I did like Frey’s appearance and it was a little disappointing that her past and character motivations weren’t explored more. I felt there were some parts of the book that moved really slowly… while the action seemed intense, concentrated in really small amounts.

I did feel there was some stereotypical behaviour in this book. There were some errors in the writing, but I did find it mostly believable. I didn’t like Llad as much by the end of the book, I have to say. He was more hero material earlier on.

Although this book was an intriguing read for part of it, I would have liked this more if there’d been much less exposition and more showing the training and what was going on. I don’t think I’ll read the second book in this series as it stands right now.

(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

Having read the first two books in this series and enjoyed them, I was really happy when I was approached to read this book. If I’m honest, the blurb did put me off a little bit… mostly because I wasn’t sure how that particular subject matter would be handled.

I didn’t like Pandra at all at the start of the book, though there was a part of me that felt sorry for her. There are very few characters in books who can cause a complete turn-around with me in terms of me going from hating them to liking them… but somehow, Pandra managed that.

I was a bit disappointed that so much time passing was glossed over, I have to say. I could see that Pandra had changed, but I wasn’t given much insight into her mindset during the time period.

It was nice to see more of the other characters, but because there were a few different romances, I felt none of the couples really had much time spent on them. Since all of them were new relationships, I felt that a lot of the development between them fell by the wayside.

It was good to see that there was plot in the story, too. The other society was really appalling. It was difficult to understand how someone could be so integrated, she would blame the victim for putting up a fight/not wanting to be taken by force. (It does, however, reflect a lot of attitudes… so I felt the author did a good job of showcasing that and I felt the culture wasn’t portrayed as a good one).

I really liked seeing how the whole society was set up and run. I was a little confused about who some of the characters were, I have to say – which was probably mainly because it’s been a little while since I read the previous books in this series.

I did like Thomal in this book and I could understand his reluctance to get personally involved with Pandra. It was nice to see it accepted that they’d both made mistakes in their time together.

I liked Faith and Kacie in this book and would have liked to see more of Kacie, as well as their aunt. I hope to see more of them in later books.

I did feel there was more of an air of mystery here and it was good to see the very real danger the characters were in. While I do wish more time had been spent showing the developing relationships, I did like most of the elements and I thought that Thomal’s battle against his ‘true’ nature was quite interesting.

I certainly hope to read more books by this author in the future. The world and characters are intriguing and the book was really easy and quick to read, despite just having had two night shifts before writing this review.

Like a lot of plot with your romance? Then I recommend this series highly.