Ink of Blood

(I received a free copy of this book from Curiosity Quills Press in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

This book was almost four stars, due to the fact that I did really find this book an entertaining, easy read. However, there were quite a few things that made me decide I couldn’t award it with the extra star.

I did like the characters and I felt myself pulled into the story very quickly. I did, however, feel that things moved far too quickly between Paige and Johnathan. The story skipped over long periods of time and I felt that a lot of their relationship was glossed over when I would have liked to see more of it developing. Because once I got over the incredibly short time they seemed to fall in love, I actually found their relationship to be quite sweet.

I liked the friendships that formed between the five characters. It was good how they came across as a family very quickly and I especially liked the bantering that went on between them. It was also good to see that they did go through the consequences of getting hurt and making mistakes, rather than being absolutely perfect with their abilities first time round.

The descriptions in this book were pretty awesome. I could really see a lot of the events happening inside my head; in particular the whole hallucinations thing. Some of the descriptions really made me wince in sympathy with the characters.

Foreshadowing. There was very little of that going on. Certain things seemed to only show up when there was a need for them – i.e. right before one of the characters is attacked, she reflects on how good it is that one of their number has training in martial arts and has been showing the group. Showing some of said training scenes would have been a whole lot better.

The whole thing with the soul-gazing is something I have seen done before, but it was handled in quite a unique way and I felt it worked particularly well.

Skipping over passages of time is something I did mention before, but putting, ‘After two weeks…’ in the same paragraph, with nothing to denote passage of time, gets confusing and disorientating. Also, if a book is written in first person and that character is not a mind reader, they shouldn’t be describing what the other characters are thinking/feeling.

I do have the second book on my Kindle and I will read it. I do, however, feel that this book could have been improved a bit.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I’d ideally give this book 3.5 stars, but I’ll leave it as 3 on here.

I’m not always one for reading historical books. That is, I probably wouldn’t choose to buy one to read. I did, however, read a historical fantasy book by Victoria Lamb, which I quite enjoyed.

The character of Elizabeth in this book contrasted sharply with that of her in Witchstruck and I felt that was done particularly well. Although the books were written by the same author, I couldn’t mistake one for the other.

I’ve long been a reader of the Horrible Histories books (and also been watching the television series). I have some passing knowledge of Tudor history and of Queen Elizabeth.

It was interesting to see how the various historical figures in this book were portrayed. I did get a bit confused at times, but the author’s spin on Shakespeare’s sexuality was kind of unique and the other historical figures came to life pretty well, even though some of them weren’t very nice. Goodluck was an interesting character, as was Lucy Morgan. It was an interesting twist to have her be Shakespeare’s ‘Dark Lady’ – something that I have no knowledge about, but which I’m sure readers with historical knowledge will appreciate.

Elizabeth was portrayed in, I felt, quite a realistic way. In some ways, I could feel for her. She came across as quite lonely at times and although she did things that were morally wrong (and hypocritical), I imagine it must have been quite lonely at times.

For the most part, the book was well-written, with only some minor confusion about whether a physician suspected a character had a broken back or neck. (I was left very confused when a message said the former and another character then started worrying that the physician had said the latter…)

I liked the ending of this book, although it wasn’t quite how one might expect. I’m not sure I’d read the previous two books in this trilogy, but I currently have the next book in the Tudor witch trilogy added to my basket on Amazon.

In my opinion, this author is worth reading and stays fairly true to the historical figures. If you like historical fiction, I do recommend her books.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

Although I’ve not read any of the original Sherlock Holmes books, I have seen a couple of different version films and television wise, so I have a bit of passing knowledge about the characters and situations.

I found the idea behind this book to be quite an intriguing one. It was interesting to see characters that I recognised, though Moriarty came across as completely different to how I understand his character to be.

I felt it fit how Holmes seemed to attach himself so quickly to Watson. That seems to be the case in pretty much anything, though in this case, I felt it worked especially well with the setting. I liked their interactions with each other, but at times, I felt that they came across as too adult. Holmes’ arrogance did come across really well, as did the fact that he had no idea about anything to do with emotions, despite being a genius in other areas.

There was enough of a mystery in this to keep me entertained and there were also some amusing moments. I would have liked a bit more explanation as to how Holmes especially was so skilled in certain things, though. It isn’t really made very clear.

The book was fairly well written, though I did notice some mistakes. However, this book did fall into one of the traps I often see with first person narrative – talking about what another character is thinking/feeling, when the POV character isn’t a mind reader. Aside from that, I did find this particularly easy and entertaining to read.

I would definitely be interested in reading more books in this series in the future.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I found this book to be a really good, entertaining read that I finished faster than I’d expected to.

When I entered to win a copy of this book, there wasn’t much information about it. I entered to win because I often like reading murder mysteries.

I was a bit surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. The main character, Maggie, was really engaging and easy to relate to. The fact that she was pregnant added a whole new dimension to the character, I felt.

I did like Maggie’s other friends in the book, though I wasn’t sure of them at times. I liked Maggie’s relationship with her husband. I thought the author did a really good job of showing their struggles… but also how much they cared for each other. (I did, however, think that Laurent was very controlling at times).

I did particularly dislike certain characters. Even the parts from their POV didn’t do anything to endear them to me and I just couldn’t see any redeeming characteristics in them.

There was quite a lot of humour in this book, which I felt worked well. I did notice one issue with the murder mystery, but on the whole, it worked really well.

The book was really well-written, with only some errors that didn’t really detract from my enjoyment. I would definitely be interested in reading more books in this series in the future.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

It might be worth noting that, when I requested this book, I didn’t have any information other than the title, author and publisher, and the front cover. I asked for it purely based on the fact that the cover looked like the sort of thing I would like.

The idea of four separate planes crashing on the same day was a particularly intriguing one. The first part of the story was quite creepy, as much because the little boy’s eye half-covered by hair made me think of Sadako from Ringu.

I think this book, no matter what the actual answer was, did a good job of showcasing how situations can get out of hand and how people can take minor things that happen and twist them to become much worse than they actually are. At the same time, I think the author gets across the feelings and emotions of the characters particularly well – like guilt and anger, whether at themselves, or at the survivors.

It was interesting that this book was written mostly like a documentary, but it did mean I kept getting confused at times. I often couldn’t tell when a new character was speaking.

The uses of different ways of getting information across was quite interesting. Because of the way the author chose to write the book, the disastrous things that happened weren’t shown in the same way and I didn’t see any scenes that were written from the point of view of one of the three.

Some parts of the book were particularly creepy, while others were more sad. I was really confused by the ending, though. It didn’t make it clear what was going on – I would have liked to have more information; maybe even a sequel.

I would be interested in reading more books by this author in the future. This was quite an entertaining read, even though it was particularly dark in places and didn’t come to an ending that was entirely satisfactory, at least in my opinion.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

When I first entered to win a copy of this book, I originally thought it was a historical novel set in Ancient Rome. It wasn’t until after I’d actually won it that I realised it was a fantasy. Or science fiction. Or a combination of both.

I like books with swords and sorcery in and have done ever since I started reading the Lone Wolf Adventure game books when I was much younger. Although this wasn’t entirely a unique storyline, it was an interesting take on the whole thing.

Although I was slightly confused with the constant changing of characters at first, I eventually got to know the characters and the storyline. It was good to see how everyone became connected throughout the course of the book.

I did like Cedrin as a character and I particularly liked Marken, too. I liked that the author had the characters actually get hurt and not be amazing fighters – and that they were skilled with certain weapons, but not all.

The descriptions in the book were particularly good. I found it really easy to empathise with the characters and the relationships that developed were good and believable.

There were a couple of humourous moments in the book that came across really well. The idea of the tattoos was quite an interesting one and I would have liked a bit more explanation about what they all meant, though the author did do a good job of imparting that information without actually creating an info-dump.

The book was really intense and kept me reading throughout. Although it was the second in a trilogy, I didn’t struggle with relating with the characters or get too confused about what was going on. I do intend to read the third and first books in this trilogy at some point in the future and I would also check out other books by this same author.