Ink of Blood

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

Having entered the giveaways to win a copy of both this book and its sequel, I was really happy when they were both offered on one of the groups I’m a member of.

I was a bit confused at first by the characters who seemed completely different to the ones in the blurb, but once I got past that, I felt that the first part worked really well as a kind of introduction to the story.

The plot of this story was a really intriguing one and as I read the book, it definitely lived up to my expectations.

I did like Hunter. I felt she came across as a realistic person and her relationship with Eli came across as very easy and natural, rather than forced and superficial.

I had some very mixed feelings about Joshua. I felt sympathetic towards him at times, but absolutely hated him at others.

One of the things that wasn’t really explained to my satisfaction was why people at her school had such a problem with Hunter. That was something I kind of struggled to understand.

Hunter’s abilities were described really well and I found it interesting that the fire had its own voice. I would have liked to see more of the origin of the rock and the powers.

I liked some of the supporting characters and really disliked others. Jack was one of those I would have liked to see more of.

On the whole, I found this book really well-written and entertaining to read. I recommend giving it a try and I’m going to be reading the sequel in the next few days.

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Rouge

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

Not being Catholic myself (though I’m a Christian), there are, I have to admit, quite a few things about the Catholic faith that I don’t agree with. I’m not going to talk about that here, save to say that I still found this book to be a really moving one, despite disagreeing with a lot of the aspects of Catholic Christianity.

I found it really easy to relate to Rose in this book. I felt bad for the relationship she had with her mother and how she still tried to be a good daughter, despite not understanding why her mother was so reluctant to spend time with her.

I also particularly liked Raphael in this book. Rose’s friendship with him was one of the sweeter things here, at least in my opinion.

The illustrations in this book were really good as well. Although some of them were a little bit strange towards the end, there were a good amount that worked really well within the course of the story. And the illustration on the front cover was done particularly well, too.

I did also like the poems used in the book. The ending was a bit emotional and I found the book, on the whole, to be really well-written. It’s not the sort of book a non-Christian would enjoy, but I personally found it very moving.

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The Tree of Healing

(This review may contain spoilers).

It did take me a little while to get to reading this book, unfortunately. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to read it… I just forgot that I said I would until this week.

I found this book really easy to read with a likable main character. There were a couple of times in this book where I found myself laughing at some of the comments Sheikoh made – and thought. (There was quite an amusing one about last thoughts…)

I did feel that Sheikoh was quite an intriguing, well-rounded character. At times, he almost seemed like he had a split personality. I really liked his relationship with Dorothia… and I also particularly liked his interactions with Ingrid. I think their relationship was a bit cliched at times, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying reading their conversations and how they were forced to work together.

Most of the characters seemed to have more than one layer to them, which is always something that’s interesting to see. I felt Sheikoh in particular had realistic strengths and weaknesses based on what had happened to him. I think I’ve mentioned before that I don’t want to see everything come easy to the heroes. It’s much more interesting to see them bleed. (It’s not that I’m bloodthirsty; I just don’t think that anything worth having is easy. And what Sheikoh wanted was nearly an impossibility.

Unfortunately, I did notice a lot of errors in the writing. I still enjoyed the book, but I felt it could have benefited from a bit more proofreading. One of the major things I noticed was a lot of missing words – and I wasn’t always sure what word was missing.

The world in this book was a really intriguing one and the characters came across as real people who I could truly care about. There were as many emotional scenes as there were humorous ones and I found myself caring about what happened throughout the course of the book.

I would definitely read a sequel to this.

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Silence (The Celestial Equation)

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

Ideally, I’d give this book 3.5 stars. Although an entertaining, easy read, I can’t quite give it four stars.

It was nice to have a bit of a variety in the short stories. There was a nice collection of different genres, as well as the supernatural one.

The Page Knoll was a particularly creepy novella. I did find that one a bit more difficult to get into, though. It was really difficult to feel much sympathy towards the characters, though there were some really creepy, well-written scenes.

The final story was a bit difficult to get into as well. I’m not sure enough time was given for me to fully get to know the characters.

The first story at the beginning had an interesting premise to it, though I felt there wasn’t enough background for me to truly care about the character. The second story was… strange. By the end, I was left unsure about what exactly had happened… or was now going to happen to the main character. I struggled a bit to feel much sympathy towards her.

I think it was the third story that was the best. The main character there was likable and easy to empathise with. And I liked the ending to that story quite a lot. I think if I’d been able to relate to the characters in the other stories more, I would have liked the other stories a bit more.

(I received a free copy of this book from 47North Publishers, through NetGalley, in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

Despite feeling plunged into the deep end with this book, I still found it really entertaining and easy to read.

I could tell that the characters had lives before the book started, considering I was thrown into the action almost straight away. It took me a little while to be able to differentiate between certain characters, but by the end of the book, I had some pretty clear favourites – like Indris and Mari. I’d like to see more of their relationship in the next two books.

I also liked Shar as a character. I did find it a bit hard to picture some of the characters in my mind, though. I wasn’t sure of all of the physical differences between the different races.

I found the world to be quite an interesting one. The idea of the Awakenings was quite a good one and I felt that there was a good range of characters in the book. I could understand the motivations of a couple of the bad guys, but there was one in particular I couldn’t understand nearly as well.

There were some things that shocked me in the book and I liked a lot of the world-building and particularly the idea about Nomads. Part of the ending really surprised me and made me want to read the other books in the trilogy – both of which I have saved on my Kindle.

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The Garden of Stones (Echoes of Empire, Book 1)

The Garden of Stones (Echoes of Empire, Book 1) Kindle Edition

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

When I first started reading this book, I felt a bit hesitant as soon as Brooke started talking about the connection she felt to Robert. However, as the book progressed, I felt that the relationship developed realistically and naturally. I could really believe in Brooke and Robert being together.

I have to be honest – Robert is not the type of guy I personally would be attracted to. If someone tried to exert that much control over me, I’d run a mile. But I was relieved to see that, despite the very (at times) rough sex, there was nothing potentially triggering.

I did think that both Robert and Brooke came across as realistic, well-rounded characters, each with their own baggage; though Robert’s was considerably more. I found myself empathising with both of them throughout the course of the book.

I liked the other characters in the book, too, particularly Travis and Sam. I got confused with the other wives for a while, but I could tell the important ones apart. I also liked the air of mystery around the book.

The use of first person worked particularly well and I was happy that the author only stuck to one POV. However… I noticed a fairly familiar trap that I see a lot with first person POV books. Like this: ‘None of us noticed…’ If no one noticed, why is it written? That did kind of throw me out of the story both times I saw it happen. I did also notice some errors in the writing, too – one of which temporarily gave Brooke a strange accent in my head.

Despite the issues mentioned above, I did find this book to be a really easy read with a main character I liked and a relationship I could really believe in. I would definitely be interested in reading the sequel to this at some point in the future.

If you’re interested in purchasing a copy of this book, here are the links:

Fallen Angel: 1 (Part I)

Fallen Angel (Part I Book 1) Kindle Edition

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

So… the blurb of this book made it sound really intriguing, but having reached the end, I feel like I’ve missed a lot about what this story was about.

One of the biggest issues I had with this book was that I felt it took a long time to get to the actual plot. Apart from a strange dream, no mention at all was made of the Queen until about 40% of the way through the book. I felt a lot of the first part could have been condensed down. I wasn’t able to connect with the POV character very well and I got very confused about what time period the book was set in. The speech was, at times, quite formal – more suited to Victorian times than modern day.

The use of history wasn’t too bad, though there was a summary of the monarchy that I found was quite boring to read. There was also a lot of summarising of conversations and things. Once they found the body, the story moved a bit faster, but up until then, I felt that a lot of the book was unnecessary – especially the car accident that seemed to have no further relevance. Also, I was more than 50% of the way through the book before finding out the name of the main character.

I did find some of the books to be quite contradictory. For instance, the group is medically trained enough to perform certain procedures, but don’t use the correct term for medical instruments.

I was a bit disappointed by how hard this book was to read. It did have one of my pet peeves – switching between first and third person. I think this book could have been improved greatly, but I didn’t feel any emotional connection to the characters. There was too much telling rather than showing and not enough character development.

There are some positive reviews for this book, so if you’re interested in checking it out and making your own mind up, here are the links to buy it:

Propinquity

Propinquity (Kindle Version)