Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

Ideally, I’d give this book 4.5 stars out of 5. Out of this series, this book is probably one of my favourites. While there are a lot of recognisable elements in this book from the Dark-Hunter series (and Zarek, of course, has the stereotypical majorly tragic past), there was more focus on the romance and less on making Zarek have the worst possible background.

I liked the link-ins to the Greek mythology and although there was a bit of information dumping, in particular when it came to Astrid’s past with Acheron, it was good to have the opportunity to get to know Astrid and to see something of her relationship with her sisters and Sasha. I loved Sasha…but I don’t want his character to be ruined like many of the others have been when they’ve got their own books.

I liked the fact that Astrid, despite being a nymph, was left not being able to see. It was good that, although she could look through Sasha’s eyes, there were still limitations to that. And she didn’t have some sixth sense for objects.

Zarek might be one of my favourite Dark-Hunters, for the simple fact that his personality doesn’t take a swan dive. This book showed more depth to him and made it clear that his prickles were a part of him. Finding his love didn’t magically change him, even though he did become a little better.

I love Simi. I’ve said this before, but this book just made me even more aware of that. Acheron went down in my estimation, but Simi became my favourite character from this book. I love her almost childlike innocence…and I definitely would have liked to see her attempt to barbeque Thanos. Even though I ended up feeling sorry for him by the end of this book.

There were some good elements of humour and banter in this book. While some of the characters from previous books did crop up, I didn’t feel like they detracted from the storyline. I do feel a lot of sympathy for the Apollites and Daimons. Even if the Daimons are the bad guys, I can’t fault them for wanting to survive. For not wanting to watch their friends and family die such an awful, horrible death.

I’m hesitant about picking up the newest books in this series, but I would very much like to read them and hopefully see a return to what drew me to this series in the first place.

(This review may contain spoilers).

Having read another book set in this same universe by this author in the past and struggled a bit with it, I was a bit hesitant to read this book, even though I enjoy fantasy. I gave it a chance…but I struggled to get into the book and didn’t really find it easy to engage with until quite far into the book, after Bee was born.

There was a lot of information dumping in this book that I felt bogged the narration down. For someone trained as an assassin, there were areas Fitz seemed to make some amateur errors. I did like the hints of his relationship with his daughter, but I found it hard to differentiate between the different characters of his stepsons. Their characters and skills weren’t really explored very much and I wasn’t given the chance to get to know the characters myself and form my own opinions of them.

I did like the relationship between Fitz and Molly and I felt myself getting frustrated with Fitz at times, considering his actions and decisions to hide things from his family. While I could understand his reasons at times, I felt that he didn’t really help himself and even though there were some hints he wasn’t really that civilised, those hints didn’t really become full-blown until much later in the book.

The switching between two different first person POVs were extremely disconcerting and I couldn’t figure out whose head I was in. There was too much telling rather than showing when it came to Fitz’s perspective and although I did feel quite a bit of sympathy for Bee, there was too much repetition about her. To be honest, by the end of the book, the cliffhanger didn’t really affect me so much. I was expecting it and I felt that the foreshadowing became fairly obvious. Also, by the end, the characters who died were people I didn’t really care that much for.

The world of the book was intriguing, but I found the characters hard to connect with. As this is the second book by this author I’ve read and struggled to enjoy, I don’t think I’ll be reading any more books set in this universe in the near future.

(This review may contain spoilers).

When I read this book for the first time several years ago, I remember I enjoyed it a lot more. I still liked the main concept, but re-reading it didn’t grip me in quite the same way this time around.

The events promised by the blurb didn’t occur until more than halfway through the book and while it was interesting to read a book that imagined a different reality, it wasn’t very clear on why the world was so different; what part of history ‘alternated’.

While I’ve never actually read any of the classics, I did find Thursday’s interactions with Rochester intriguing. It was also good to see a different side to Rochester himself, rather than have him just come across as a gruff, dark, brooding man.

I found it particularly interesting to see some of Mycroft’s inventions and recognise at least one of them as technology similar to what we have nowadays. It was good to see that there were some kinks that he needed to work out and there was a nice bit of humour when it came to his interactions with Thursday about the memory machine.

I have to say, I felt the biggest issue with this book was the fact that it kept slipping from first person to third. That made it very difficult to read the book from Thursday’s perspective, as I was forever having to discard knowledge I as a reader had that Thursday didn’t actually know at the time. A lot of the mystery in the book fell by the wayside because of this.

The snippets at the beginning of each chapter were intriguing and enough to give me at least some insights into the world as it stood there. However, there was too much information dumping when it came to Thursday’s relationships and past history with the other characters. I would have liked to see them for myself, rather than have my perceptions of them coloured by Thursday’s own observations about characters like Landon.

I did think there were some good moments of foreshadowing and the book was engaging to read at times. The world had a lot of potential, but I was disappointed that such a promising blurb really ended up falling short by the time I reached the end. And I felt like the book broke its own rules of the universe.

It’s a bit disappointing to admit, but I don’t expect I’ll be seeking out the next books in this series for a re-read.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I recently picked up one of the later books in this series, so when a book reading challenge gave me the opportunity to re-read the first book, I jumped at the chance.

The Dresden Files might be one of my favourite series of books. I particularly like how resourceful Harry Dresden can be, but also that he’s completely clueless when it comes to more mundane things. While there were quite a few instances of information dumping, I still very much enjoyed reading this book and it was quick and easy.

I liked the relationships Dresden had with the other characters, even those like Carmichael, who really disliked him. But one of my favourite characters was probably Karrin, who it was nice to see again for the first time. I really enjoyed her interactions with Dresden and I felt she was a strong character, perhaps in spite of Dresden’s chivalry, which did kind of come across as annoying at times.

I really liked the opportunity to learn more about the rules of magic in Dresden’s world, in particular how he made the potions. And it was really good to see that things did go wrong and not necessarily according to plan, but also to see that Dresden would get up and keep on fighting, despite what happened to him.

Even though I do think vampires are over-used in popular culture, it was interesting to see Bianca and how she and Dresden interacted with each other. The scene with Toot made me giggle and it was really good I had the opportunity to see different types of creatures in the world. Plus, it was nice to see the mystery aspects with the unusual murders. I did, however, get a bit frustrated with Dresden and his abject refusal to tell Murphy anything.

I also really liked Bob, although I was left unsure if the skull was actually an ally, or if he had some ulterior motives, given Dresden had to effectively bargain with him to get what he needed for him and Susan to escape.

Despite the instances of information dumping, this remains one of my favourite book series and I do have other books in the series, along with two more on order.

(This review may contain spoilers).

Ideally, I’d give this book 3.5 stars. I did enjoy this book and found it a fairly easy read, but I was a bit disconcerted when it suddenly switched from first person perspective to third and then randomly back again.

For a book that I’ve seen and read so much about, it took me a very long time to actually read this. I was intrigued by the way the book started and it didn’t take me long to start to like Arnie, even though he was acting in ways so completely out of character.

While this book did move a bit slowly in parts, when the action occurred, it was pretty major. There were parts of this book that were very disturbing to read – and outside of Dennis and Arnie, there weren’t too many characters I liked. It was easier to see why Dennis was so affected by Christine, but less so when it came to Leigh, for instance.

While I didn’t like the switch from first person to third, it did allow me a glimpse into how the other characters viewed Arnie’s obsession with Christine, as well as Arnie himself. I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for him, especially when it felt like he was trying to reach out for help and no one was around.

I didn’t like Christine. Yes, the car was a character in her own right. And at first, I actually felt a small sense of sympathy for her. At first, it seemed like she was lashing out to protect herself and her owner. Like a dog trained to bite to protect his or her owner. It wasn’t until someone who was (relatively) innocent was killed by her that my own views of the car changed so drastically.

I did like the slow build of this book and I felt that, despite the supernatural elements, there was a lot of realism in the actions of the characters, particularly towards the end. While there were some disappointing aspects to the ending, it did make a lot of sense and I felt that was true to life as well.

I’m not sure I’d read this book again, but I would, in the future, read other books by this author, especially as I do enjoy the horror genre.

(This review may contain spoilers).

When I first saw the cover of this book, I was immediately taken with it. And I really wanted to like this book. The blurb was such an intriguing one and there was a lot that could have made the book really easy to read.

I felt that Samantha was a character who came across as quite one-dimensional, with a few sparks of more to her that didn’t really go anywhere. I actually found it quite hard to relate to any of the other characters. While there was a lot of potential with Samantha’s mother and sisters, I felt that most of their characteristics only cropped up when it was relevant to the plot. For instance, Samantha saying her mother didn’t like people to be in same-sex relationships. Actually, the two young women romantically involved weren’t even mentioned before the whole conversation. It really felt like there was a lot missing in character development and the switching from Samantha’s first person POV to Manny’s was confusing and made it hard to read towards the end.

I would have liked it if the book had been expanded upon, with more details about the other secondary characters, such as Samantha’s host family. I was also very disappointed that Samantha’s personality kept changing. She went from being absolutely clueless about a guy being interested in her to outright flirting. And there were a lot of cringeworthy scenes where she seemed to come across as a vapid fangirl, rather than a strong female character.

The book was very short, which was a mistake. Considering the book was (I’m guessing?) meant to be about a young woman breaking her way into a man’s sport, it spent very little time actually developing that and it was irritating that Samantha was so much better, despite it being acknowledged she didn’t have the same experience.

There was so much potential in this book, but it really fell short of the execution. I don’t think I’ll be reading more books in this series unless there are some drastic changes put in place.