Ink of Blood

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I have a few other books by this author on my Kindle, but this is the first one that I’ve read.

Although this book is revealed to be a prequel to existing books, I still found it fairly easy to follow, though I did think the book suffered a bit from info-dumping. I think it would have been worth having a prologue to this book to explain the backstory a bit more, rather than having it explained right before it becomes relevant.

A lot of the ideas in this book were particularly intriguing ones, such as the First Families idea and the way the first humans created their own perfect mates… though I felt it was a bit unfair that Jacob didn’t get that chance.

A lot of the characters were quite interesting and it’s always intriguing to see the origin of a villain. I did, however, find that some of the characters’ actions were a bit contradictory. There was a bit of a twist at the end, but I was taken quite by surprise by it in the… ‘That doesn’t make sense. At all.’

I liked the idea of the two gods and I would have liked to see a bit more of their origin. It was interesting to see good and bad characters on both ‘sides’. I particularly liked Patrick as a character. He might have been my favourite.

There was a bit of confusion with some of the characters and points of view. By the end of the book, I was able to figure out what was going on, but there were a few too many different perspectives at first.

I particularly liked Aully’s and Kindren’s relationship. That was, I felt, the romance that had the most realism to it.

I do have other books by this author on my Kindle and at some point in the future, I will definitely read the others I have on here. This is a world I’d like to see more of and characters that were intriguing and well-developed.

This was a good fantasy book and although the idea wasn’t an entirely original one, it was an entertaining read that kept my attention throughout.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

This book was a bit more intense to read than I’d been expecting. The first few lines drew me in straight away and I was able to empathise with Jewel really easy.

I found myself fully invested in this book more or less immediately. I felt that the author did a really good job of showing the way Bird’s death affected everyone in the family.

I really liked the relationship that formed between Jewel and John. Although there were problems, no relationship is emotionally satisfying to read about or watch unless there’s real conflict involved.

I also liked the relationship that developed between Jewel and her Grandpa. That was really sweet and it was nice to see a member of Jewel’s family come across as truly caring for her. It was also intriguing to see how his character became more well-developed over the course of the book.

It was really interesting to read about Jewel’s dad’s culture and also to see the contrast between the past and the present through the tapes.

I did like the ending of the book, though it wasn’t a perfect one. This was quite an intense, emotionally-charged read. I would definitely read more books by this author in the future.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I’ve only read the first book in the Beautiful Creatures series, but I did quite enjoy it, so when I saw this short story offered on NetGalley, I immediately decided I wanted to read it.

Ridley is a character I found particularly intriguing in the book, though I think her character was ruined quite a bit in the film. I found it interesting that, despite the whole Dark and Light Castors, Ridley was more of a well-rounded character.

It was good to see Ridley’s relationship with Link. I felt that theirs was a bit more believable than Ethan and Lena’s – mostly, I think, because there was more conflict involved. I wasn’t sure the first person bit at the beginning was necessary, though, since the rest of the short story was written in third person.

I did think this was a good introduction to the next series of books. I’d definitely be intrigued to read those, particularly if they do concentrate on Ridley and Link.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I did think that the concept behind this book was quite an interesting one, but I felt a lot of the execution fell short.

In my opinion, there was a lot of telling rather than showing going on. There was quite a lot of info-dumping about the characters that made it hard to get behind them.

The science fiction aspect was probably the strongest part of this book. I felt that the author put a lot of thought and effort into the different options to save the planet. I’m not sure how many of those would have worked realistically, but I felt it was good that some effort was made to have the possibilities come across as realistic as possible.

I didn’t notice too many mistakes in the book. I think the main issue is that it’s just a bit too short. If the author had expanded the plot and the characters, I probably would have liked it a bit more.

The book was fairly easy to read, but one of the main things that I noticed was the alliteration – there was far too much of that with the characters. Once or twice might be quite clever… but there was only perhaps one named character who didn’t have the same letter for the first name and the surname.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I did actually quite like this book more than I thought I would. I’m sick of vampire romances with young adult heroines who fall in love at first sight, so this was a refreshing change from all of those.

I felt that the time frame of this book worked particularly well. I liked Eric as a character and in some ways, I did like his original relationship with Stefan. Things didn’t quite go the way I was hoping with that relationship, though, and I wound up not entirely sure how much of Stefan had been that bad before. I found some things very contradictory.

I did like the relationships between the characters once they formed, but I felt that there was a lot of falling in love at the drop of a hat. The characters were well-defined and intriguing. I also liked the idea of the different kinds of vampire there were.

The setting of the book was believable and I felt the language used mostly worked. I did find my head spinning a bit, though, with all of the twists and turns the storyline was taking. Most of the characters weren’t what they seemed and the ones I thought were good guys changed really quickly.

The descriptions in this book worked particularly well to enable me to picture the events happening inside my mind. This was a dark novel that had intriguing characters and although I didn’t think there was much development allowed for relationships, they still worked well eventually.

I would probably be interested in reading more books by this author at some point in the future. It’s at least free of perfect, Mary Sue characters.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I did find this book a little hard to get into at times. The scene at the beginning was quite an intriguing one, but it was hard to see how it fit in with everything else for a little while.

I did like Spike as a character. He was easy to relate to and it was interesting to see him dealing with the courtroom case. Many of the characters were well-defined and so were the scenes in the story. The usage of other languages did make sense, rather than just feeling like they were being used for the sake of it.

I didn’t really like Jessica as a character and I did think that, although the bond that formed between Spike and Charlie worked well, I couldn’t say the same for Charlie’s mother. I had a lot of trouble getting behind that relationship, especially because of the lack of professionalism I felt there was.

Some of the supporting characters weren’t as well-defined as the main ones, I felt. They didn’t really seem to have a life outside of their interactions with Spike.

I did find this book easy to read and although I think it could have been improved, it did work well as a standalone. I’d be curious to read the preceding books at some point in the future.