Ink of Blood

(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.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I think the Fairies of Rush was probably one of my favourite duologies when I first started reading books on my Kindle. I’ve had this book on my device for a while, but only recently had a reason to read it.

I did really enjoy reading this book, although I did find Ash to be a sexist jerk for part of the book. Well, most of the beginning. Then again, Joey felt exactly the same way, so it was good to see that at least he didn’t get away with the sexist beliefs. And even though it wasn’t an excuse, there were at least reasons behind his way of thinking. And the more I learned about his past, the more sympathy I felt for him.

I liked seeing Joey and glimpses of her relationship with her sister, but I would have liked to see a bit more of them interacting before she came to Ash in the hospital. I felt there was a bit too much information dumping in the book, in particular when it came to Joey’s relationship with her family members.

It was good to see the way the relationship formed between Joey and Ash. I liked the recurring theme of the frog and there were some really sweet moments between them. Plus, I really liked the fact that Joey didn’t change anything about herself to be with Ash. In fact, I had the feeling they both had to compromise. Their relationship felt real and I cared about whether they sorted out the conflicts or not.

I liked the fact that Joey’s psychic abilities were so easy and natural for her, but I would have liked to see more details about who apart from her father knew about her powers. While it was interesting to see the links with the murderer, there were times I felt that part of the storyline dragged. And I didn’t think the twists worked so well. I figured out the identity before the main characters did because of a comment I felt Ash, at least, should have picked up on. And I didn’t think the red herrings worked as well as they could have done.

I think the romantic aspect of the book worked better than the thriller aspects and I would have liked the serial killer aspect to either have been dropped into lower focus, or to be a bigger part of the book, as I didn’t feel it quite lived up to my expectations.

I did, however, enjoy reading this book and I would read more books by this author in the future.

(This review may contain spoilers).

It’s been quite a while since I returned to the world of Deverry, but when I started reading this book, it was really nice to return to a world I had spent a lot of time in when I was much younger.

I really liked being able to see the contrast between the past and the present. I couldn’t help but feel a lot of sympathy for some of the characters, especially at the beginning. The cycle of rebirth was really interesting to read about and I especially felt that this book did a good job of showing the differences in the characters from one life to another.

I really didn’t like Maryn in the first part of the book. I felt a lot of empathy for Bellyra, but I really thought that she was trapped in a loveless marriage. I very much preferred her relationship with Maddyn, even though they didn’t really have much hope. And even though I knew no good could come from their feelings for each other, I did want them to have a happy ending.

I really didn’t like Lilli, even though I did like seeing her relationship with Branoic and it was quite a strange thing to see Jill’s soul as a male, considering every other appearance she’s been female. I did think it was quite nice to see such a difference in that life.

I was somewhat unsure of what to make of Rhodry in the second half of the book. In the previous volumes, I really liked him, but I felt he was flirting with madness in this book. At the same time, it came across quite strongly that he’d lived too long and was at the point where death would be a welcome comfort. I did enjoy seeing him interact with the dragon, who I developed a particular fondness for.

I did feel sympathy for Varrac, even though I didn’t really like him when he was interacting with Raena. I was disappointed that the blurb wasn’t entirely accurate, as I didn’t feel there was a huge amount of hostility between Rhodry and Raena. Certainly not enough to stretch over at least two lifetimes.

There was a lot of action and fantasy in this book and it made me want to re-read the other books in this series at some point in the future.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I’ve read quite a few other books by this author, but this one was in quite a different vein to the Study series.

I found Trella to be a really interesting character and it was good to see the contrast between the Scrubs and the Uppers, but also to see that both groups viewed each other with suspicion and both believed things that weren’t true about the others.

I liked seeing Trella’s relationship with Cog and also see how she interacted with Riley. However, there was quite a bit of contradiction between the scrubs at the start of the book and the scrubs later. I felt there wasn’t really enough of an explanation as to why the fellow scrubs were suddenly so eager to protect Trella, considering the vague mentions of hostility towards her.

I was able to picture the clear differences between the lower and upper levels and I felt the author did a good job of showing the cramped space of the scrubs and the larger amount of space the uppers had.

There were occasions I lost sight of what exactly it was Trella was trying to do and there wasn’t really a sense of urgency, even after what happened with Cog. The bad characters didn’t really seem to have any depth to them, even though there was one hint that Karla might have felt a bit differently about the population issues.

I would have liked a bit more detail about the care mothers and what Trella’s past had been like. Did the Scrubs ever see their care mothers again? And also some more individual characters in the scrub society would have been good to see.

I did find myself drawn easily into the world, but I felt there were a few moments of repetition, such as the constant referring to Trella as ‘Queen of the Pipes’.

I did think there were better things Trella could have done and I liked seeing the Tech Nos, Logan and his partner, even though I wasn’t entirely sure why they in particular had chosen to resist and what really drove them.

In the future, I would like to read the next book in this series. I did enjoy this book and there were some really good characters, even though I would have liked to see more of some of the secondary ones.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I have to be honest and say I was quite disappointed in this book. I really liked the front cover and the blurb immediately piqued my attention. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of reincarnation.

A lot of the book was beautifully written, but the almost poetic feel to it made it come across as very surreal. In many ways, it was unclear as to whether Denis was looking back on his past, or telling the events as they happened.

While I did feel a lot of sympathy for M, I felt there was a lot of telling rather than showing and I didn’t really see much of M’s apparent maturity and her ‘old soul’, though that seemed to be explained away when the book switched over to M’s POV at the end.

The book did make it fairly clear what was going to happen and despite the hints things might be different this time around, by the end of the third part, I wasn’t really surprised by what happened. And I would have liked to see a bit more expansion of Waters and how Enoch fit in with the two main characters. Again, there was too much telling rather than showing. And even with the romance that cropped up, that didn’t really feel real, as too much time was glossed over and I felt there were a lot of hints dropped that weren’t then expanded upon.

I did feel a lot of emotion during Denis’ account of his relationship with both his father and his mother and the sense that he’d run out of time with both was very real. In many ways, I would have liked to see more focus on his relationship with his parents, which were also glossed over quite a bit more.

I have to say, I did find the ending a little bit weird. It possibly would have been less so if it hadn’t been made completely clear what M and Denis’ past relationships in their previous lives ha been like.

I would have liked a lot more showing rather than telling, especially in regards to things like Denis’ mother stating that M was like a wife and a mother. I think this book would have been better expanded upon, perhaps with earlier parts indicating more of the past lives and the kind of cycle the three of them were bound in.