Ink of Blood

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

Zombies are less over-used in young adult paranormal fiction than a lot of supernatural creatures, but even so, I do have some mixed feelings about this book.

On the one hand… I found it really easy to relate to Sadie’s character in this book. I felt that the author did a really good job of showing how confused and disorientated Sadie was most of the time. I could really relate to her as a character.

I found it a bit more difficult when it came to Sadie and Evan’s relationship. I think that things moved a bit too fast with them, with not really enough build-up.

It was interesting that there was some technology that people could still use, such as generators and solar power. I thought that made a lot of sense.

The idea behind the zombie thing was a pretty interesting and unique one. I would have liked some more details about the history behind how people in the world became these creatures, though.

I liked the fact that none of the characters were truly evil. They all came across as quite well-rounded, even those who weren’t very nice.

I did think that the book didn’t need to switch between first and third person, or past and present tense. That was confusing, especially the switching of tenses.

I did notice a few errors in the book, but nothing that was really major.

I am curious to see what will happen to the characters next. If there’s a sequel to this, I would definitely be interested in reading it.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

Ideally, I’d have given this book 3.5 stars – it’s not quite 4, but not quite 3, either.

The cover, although it looked a bit juvenile, did appeal to me when I was looking at giveaways. I think the cover did a really good job of showing a representation of the story, without giving too much away.

The use of first person worked particularly well and did a good job of drawing me into the story. Skip had a history and relationships with the other characters that really made me able to relate to him. I have to say, though, that I did notice a couple of slip-ups where Hill’s thoughts were described – and Skip wouldn’t have known them.

The science fiction aspects worked particularly well and it was interesting to learn more about the different alien races, though there were a few info-dumps about the races.

Parts of the book were especially intense and emotional. I did like Skip’s relationship with his brother and I would have liked to see more of that – I’m a sucker for good brother relationships.

I also felt that there wasn’t much of a mystery involved here, but the characters did make up for that. They were interesting and well-rounded with realistic strengths and weaknesses.

I did notice quite a few errors in the writing. I feel it would have benefited from another read-through before being published.

I’m certainly intrigued enough to want to read more books in this series. It would be good to see more of these characters.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I was a bit surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Young adult books can sometimes be a bit hit and miss with me, but this one definitely succeeded in holding my attention.

Cipher was a character I found really easy to identify with. I’m quite happy to read books written in the first person, but most of the time, the first-person character changes. I was… really glad that didn’t happen here.

The storyline of this book was really intriguing and was enough to keep me reading throughout. It was really good to read a book about clones – they’re not something that feature too much and although Cipher was a unique character, it wasn’t in a way that made her an irritating heroine.

I have mixed feelings about the love triangle here. As a rule, I have gone off love triangles. However, this was one time I felt it had been done in a particularly good way. I liked both of the males and even by the end, I wasn’t sure who I was rooting for Cipher to end up with.

I do think that periods of time were skipped over a bit too much. There were some things that I would have liked to see develop – like the relationships between the characters.

I didn’t have a particular favourite character, except perhaps for Oona. The main characters came across as real, realistic people, with strengths and weaknesses that made sense. The first scene was enough to drag me into the book and as the events progressed, I kept reading. I could experience how Cipher felt along with her.

The writing was very good and I could picture a lot of the events happening in my mind. The ending wasn’t exactly satisfying, so I’m hoping there will be at least a sequel to this – I think there’s so much more of the story that could be explored.

I would definitely be interested in reading more books by this author in the future. If you’re looking for a young adult book that doesn’t have vampires, demons, angels or witches in it, this is more realistic science fiction.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

This did take me a little while to read, but that was because the book was so long, rather than being hard to read.

The idea behind this book was particularly intriguing and I felt myself pulled in almost from the start, though I did find it somewhat difficult to picture the particular characters at first. The bloodlines thing made sense as I read more, but it was hard to picture exactly what type of creature had been introduced to begin with.

I did like Yama at first, but kind of went off him a bit as the story progressed and he grew up. By the end of the trilogy, I was finding it somewhat difficult to follow him. I also still have little idea of what exactly was going on in the end – there just seemed to be a very circular thing to it and I think the ending could have been modified to make it a bit more satisfactory.

I particularly liked Pandaras’ character in this book. He grew up in the book as well, but still kept to his true personality. One thing in particular he says really struck a chord with me – and I think it’s something I should keep in mind when thinking of certain plots. I won’t say exactly what he says, but it’s in response to a comment made about dying to save the world.

I think my favourite part of this book was Pandaras’ friendship and utter loyalty towards Yama. I’ve always liked books where a true friendship forms and it endeared Pandaras to me even more.

I believed more in Yama’s relationship with Tamora than with Derev. I just couldn’t really picture the emotions he had for Derev being all that real.

The idea of all of the bloodlines descending from animals was a pretty intriguing one. I could recognise some of the species’ ancestors, but not all of them. The science fiction aspect worked particularly well, though there was quite a bit that I had trouble understanding.

The two stories at the end were interesting, but I didn’t feel that the second one added a great deal. If it was meant to reveal something new, I didn’t see it.

I would look at other books by this author in the future. I did find this one an entertaining read and there was an awful lot of world-building that clearly went on with this, even if I did feel it got a bit bogged down with detail at time.

(I received a free copy of this book from Bold Strokes Books, through NetGalley, in return for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

Ideally, I’d give this book 4.5 stars, but since I can’t give half stars…

This was a book I particularly wanted to read. The blurb sounded really interesting and the cover really attracted me.

The plot of the story managed to keep me reading and I really did like the romance that developed between Imms and B. I thought the author did a really good job of showing how Imms developed as a character.

The contrast between the Silvers’ planet and Earth came across really well, as did how different people reacted to Imms when he was on Earth. One thing that really struck me was that no one cared enough about what was happening to Imms to try and stop it, even when they said they didn’t agree with it. Sadly, I feel that’s all too true of the world we now live in. People rarely step in when they think something’s wrong.

The relationships that Imms formed with others came across really well, but it was sad that he was forced to change and that people wanted to provoke him. Because we need more violence in the world.

I can see this happening if we discovered aliens. The romance between B and Imms was sweet at times, but Imms was the only one who seemed to have to change.

I would definitely be interested in reading a sequel to this book. I think there’s still so much of the story to be told.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

For those of you not aware, I actually did also win a copy of the first book in this series. That probably has little relevance to this review, except to say that I was already familiar with the characters.

This is definitely a good book for younger children to read. The two girls are characters I would have found easy to relate to as a child. There’s not a huge amount of mystery in this, but I think it’s enough to keep a child’s attention… possibly not every child, though.

The illustrations worked really well with this book and I think they would certainly succeed in drawing a child in. The bits of history revealed were interesting and didn’t come across as a lecture or info-dump.

It was good that there were actually some German phrases in this book, especially within the dialogue. I think it provides a bit of learning made fun.

The information after the story is finished is quite good and it’s nice that there’s a recipe so that children can experience Austrian cooking.

I passed the first of these books onto my niece and I intend to do that with this one, too.