Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

It’s been a while since I read the first book in this trilogy, but I did find this book easy to read and pick up the storyline on.

I really liked Fox and Layla together, but I kept getting confused with the other two sets of characters. It was interesting to see the abilities each of the characters had and how their abilities complemented each other.

It was interesting to see hints of the past and what happened to each of their ancestors. What I found the most intriguing was the idea about sacrifice. It’s a nice change-up to see the idea that the good guys still have to do bad things, even if the reasons are good.

I’m not sure ‘liked’ is the right word, but I thought the atmosphere in the book was really intense, considering it was building up to the next Seven. I wasn’t very clear on what rules there were for the demon, though, as I assumed that its power was stronger on the actual night.

I found it interesting to see the history of the characters and the town and how Layla, Quinn and Cybil were fitting in there. I liked the fact that I could see Layla and Cybil’s issues, even if Quinn did seem to settle in with Cal very quickly.

There were some quite creepy moments in this book, especially when it came to them each experiencing the things that had negative effects on them in their pasts or what they feared. It was also scary to see how commonplace some of those things were, to the point that Fox wasn’t even startled by the sight of the boy.

I also liked being able to see glimpses of not only Fox’s past, but also Gage’s. It was good to see something of what made them the way they were, even though I felt that Fox didn’t really seem like he had that secret in his past. The effects weren’t really that clear before he had the dream.

I also liked seeing the relationship between Fox and his family and there were a few amusing moments involving them and Layla. It was also really nice to see glimpses of Fox’s relationship with his sister and Paula.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I posted a review for the final book in this series and remembering how I felt about that, I didn’t really have high hopes for this book. Having said that…

I actually enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. I did, however, think that there were a lot of the stereotypical fantasy characters that appeared in the previous fantasy series. Rabbit, for instance, was like Silk. And I recognised both Polgara’s and Flute’s personalities.

I did like Longbow, but I think he would have been infinitely more interesting if he’d had more weaknesses than just wanting to kill the creatures of the Waste. I couldn’t even really say that was a weakness, as it didn’t seem to have any negative impact on him.

I felt like, even though there was some serious underestimation of the creatures, the characters had it very easy. While there were some injuries and deaths, none of the main characters really seemed to be in any kind of danger.

I thought there could have been some more conflicts between the two armies, considering they were on separate sides of the war. I thought it was amusing to read about Veltan’s long ‘exile’ to the moon, but I was left with the sense of HOW did everyone bar Veltan know ‘the moon couldn’t be trusted’?

I did think passages of time were glossed over, which would have been fine, but there was the sense of huge changes in the world when Zelana retreated. There were two very conflicting sense of her. One character says she doesn’t like the humans very much and the other says she persuades people to do what she wants through love. Neither of those were shown very much, only told about.

I did like the fact that the bad guys were underestimated, but at times, it was difficult to remember what the whole war was. There were some elements of humour, but there was a lot of repetition in the book.

While I did enjoy reading this book for a fantasy read, I felt there wasn’t enough conflicts and it had too much in common with other books by the authors. It’s a shame, as David Eddings was one of my favourite fantasy authors when I was growing up.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I really liked the concept behind this book, being someone who has enjoyed making up stories and fantasy worlds from a really early age.

I would have liked a bit more detail of the differences between Tamarisk and Earth. While Tamarisk clearly had some fantasy elements, there were also parts that matched modern-day Earth. And while there had been some thought given to the science behind things, I would have liked perhaps some flashbacks to Chris and Becky telling the stories to each other. Seeing the strain in their relationship in the present day would have been more poignant if there’d been more showing the contrasts between their relationship in the past and their relationship in the present.

While it was easy to see the tension between Polly and Chris, I felt there was too much in the way of information dumping in regards to the other characters. For instance Lisa, who seemed to be good friends with Chris and who knew Becky… but had little to no interactions with her.

The already-established relationships were actually quite easy to believe, but I thought that the friendship between Miea and Becky was glossed over and didn’t feel that real. Most of the travels to Tamarisk were just glossed over; and there was little to no foreshadowing about what Becky was seeing when it was shown. By the end of the book, I had very little idea of just how much time had passed.

I did figure out the exact cause of the Blight before it was revealed and I found it quite strange that the characters didn’t figure it out for a long time. When it was realised, it didn’t really feel all that satisfactory, as said realisation was glossed over and not shown.

I liked being able to see different parts of the world and something of the animals that existed, but there were some things that weren’t really explained away; for instance that Miea remembered animals that had disappeared while no one else did. I was also disappointed that the forays into Earth weren’t really explored.

I don’t think I’d read this book again, but it was entertaining to read the first time. I think there were some things that could have been expanded upon further.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I’ve always enjoyed reading books by this author and this one was no exception.

I really like Eve Dallas’ character and I especially enjoyed seeing her relationship with Rourke. While I did think there was a bit too much summarising of past events, it was good to see bits and pieces of her past. And I thought there were some really good moments between her and the other characters. It was good to see her interactions with Peabody and there were a few scenes I found myself smiling at their exchanges.

I really liked seeing the setting of the world and how it imagined the future to look like, especially with the use of the droids and the fact that coffee was a shortage.

The thriller type aspect of this book was really creepy even from the start, but I felt that it was spoiled somewhat by the constant switching in POVs. I would have liked to see the book entirely from Eve’s perspective, rather than have it switch over to provide some red herrings.

Right from the start, it was good to see something of how Eve relaxed, if one could term it that. And it was good to see the mixture of science fiction with the murder aspect. And I especially liked that both Eve and Rourke still seemed to have hangups, even though they were clearly happy and very much in love.

I did think there were times when Eve’s actions contradicted each other. That wouldn’t have been such a bad thing, but I wasn’t sure exactly where she drew the line.

I also liked that, along with trying to solve the murders, it felt like there was a lot more going on personally with the characters. I have to be honest, though, and say that Mavis annoyed me a bit by the end of the book. I felt like she was a bit over-the-top and didn’t really seem that sincere.

I did feel like there were a few instances of telling rather than showing when it came to relationships between Eve and some of the other characters. But this book did draw me in and kept me reading throughout. I enjoyed the world and getting to know the characters and I would definitely be interested in reading more books in this series in the future.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I’d give this book 3.5 stars out of 5. As I recall, I liked the first one a whole lot…but this second book kind of strayed away from Alanna’s desire to be a knight and focused far more on forcing a love triangle. While I did enjoy seeing her interactions with the other characters, especially Jonathan and George, I would have preferred the friendship building to forcing romance.

It was interesting to see something of Roger’s machinations, but because the book switched between POVs, there wasn’t really much in the way of surprises. And some of the more minor characters seemed to get left by the wayside.

One of the main things I liked about this book (and the first one) was that the role of a knight clearly wasn’t glamorous or easy. While Alanna was skilled in fighting, it was because of the long training she’d had. And it was clear her stubborn nature didn’t do her many favours.

I really liked the fact Alanna got a cat and it was amusing to see the two of them communicate human to feline. I also enjoyed seeing Alanna interacting with some of the other soldiers, though I felt there were a few too many secondary characters that weren’t really developed.

I did also feel like passages of time were glossed over. The book wasn’t really long enough to span a couple of years and I didn’t think nearly enough growth was shown for any of the characters, not just Alanna. I would have liked to see a bit more detail about Alex, especially as he, like some of the other characters, were lost by the end of the book.

I felt this book could have done with being longer and more expanded upon. It was nice to see how Alanna’s brother, Thom, had changed and grown, but seeing his maturity only seemed to hit home how little Alanna had changed. And with her constant protestations about not wanting to fall in love and be beholden to any man, I felt like the book became more about that and less about her dream of becoming a knight.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and the others as a child, but re-reading it now as an adult, I recognised there were parts of the story that weren’t as strong.

(This review may contain spoilers).

This book actually contains two misses for me. 1: It’s about vampires. 2: It’s about destined love. Both of these have become over-used in books and destined love is very rarely handled well.

So why did I pick this book to read? The plot sounded good. And Alec was a policeman, rather than a high school girl.

The reason this book gets three stars is actually not because of the romance. The sheer amount of information dumping made it very hard to read the book. There was really only any action right at the beginning and towards the end. During the middle scenes, I was lulled into the same sense of complacency the main characters seemed to be. During one scene where there’s an attack, I actually didn’t realise that was happening, since there was little to no buildup.

There were a lot of really sweet, tender moments between Cronin and Alec and I felt that Alec’s reactions to the ‘destined love’ thing were actually realistic. There was time taken to allow them to grow.

The concept of the vampire culture being ‘hidden’ in modern culture would have been an interesting one, but I never got to see or learn anything of that for myself. I actually did have a major issue with the book at the beginning, as I thought it seemed really odd that Alec would just pack up his job and not even consider what he might do. It would have been good to know what made him decide to be a police officer in the first place.

I did like seeing some of the other vampires and learning about what they could do; but, again, it would have been better to be shown rather than told. Many of the secondary characters weren’t developed enough for me to really care about what happened to them.

The inclusion of Egyptian mythology would have been an interesting twist, if it weren’t for the above-mentioned information dumping. I think this book would have really benefitted from less dialogue and more action.

It’s a toss-up whether I’ll read the next books in the series or not. I liked Cronin and Alec together and their romance felt real. I cared about it. But the rest of the plot was very much a miss.