Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

(Warnings for potential triggering material).

While I haven’t read the first book in this series, I found it really easy to read this book and understand more or less what was going on… even though I had some very mixed feelings by the end of this book.

I was surprised that so much of the book was in Jardir’s country, since the blurb seemed to imply that the main focus of the book would be on Arlen. I did find Jardir to be a really interesting character… though I felt that a lot of his relationships with the people around him were glossed over. While it was good to see what his society was like in regards to hunting the demons. I did like seeing the politics and how Inevera manipulated situations to place Jardir into power. I didn’t understand everything about the different castes of people, but I could see how her manipulations took effect.

I did feel that rape was used as a plot device in this book. It seemed like a lot of the female characters went through that, to the point that it seemed even the strongest ones had to go through it. I was actually extremely disappointed in how things turned out with Renna… since even though she developed into a strong character by the end, she was only able to do that because she was saved by one of the other male characters.

I liked being able to see different parts of the world… and although some of Jardir’s actions were especially wrong (rape being used by his soldiers as a plot device again, despite adding to the army taking many years even once they got a woman pregnant), I really liked the idea of all men being brothers in the night.

I didn’t really like Leesha as a character… but then again, I also strongly disliked Renna’s sisters. I did feel that Leesha’s character wasn’t really explored and rather than coming across as intelligent, she just came across as childish and someone who clearly didn’t care about the personal feelings about other people.

I found the idea of the Coreling princes interesting and I would have liked to see a bit more of them. While it was interesting to see the differences between the two societies… but there weren’t many sympathetic characters on either side.

Although I was a little surprised to receive this book, I did find it to be a really good idea. I wound up reading it with my nephew, who’s two… although it was less reading and more encouraging him to sound out the words, which he did with great enthusiasm with ‘Wa’.

While it was good to get pictures and names for the characters to begin with, I felt that, even for very young readers, there could have been a lot more detail. It was good to have the visual clues that I could point to for my nephew to look at… but by the time we got to the past couple of pages, he seemed to be getting a bit bored and wanted to read another book.

I think this is a good book for much younger readers, but it could contain a lot more words for younger children to learn, rather than just showing one word per book. It did succeed in getting my nephew to speak along, but I don’t think he was able to make the connection in putting the two sounds together.

Using the child characters to teach the words is good, but I feel it could have been expanded a lot more in length and in storyline… though the illustrations work really well and are very clear and simple.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

Having been an avid reader of Greek mythology for a really long time, I was quite eager to read this book that was a retelling of one of the stories I know… though not every aspect as well as the others.

It was good to see all of the different characters, but I didn’t feel like they were really expanded upon. I liked being able to see Clytemnestra and getting some hints of her feelings for Aegisthus and his for her… but I lost a lot along the way of the hostility/rage of Clytemnestra apparently had towards her husband. When Aegisthus kept talking about what had happened to his brothers, I had the strong feeling that was just an excuse. There was very little depth to him as a character.

I didn’t feel that the story changing to prose worked very well. I found it very distracting to read the conversations between Apollo and the Furies and Athena and the Furies. The rest of the book wasn’t like that… and it did throw me out of the story as I tried to translate the archaic language of the prose.

While there were elements of Orestes being driven mad by Apollo’s voice in his head, I did think that was the strongest part of the book. I would have liked to see more in the way of showing rather than telling… especially with Orestes’ and his sister’s relationships with their cousin. I couldn’t actually figure out why Orestes and his cousin were lovers, since I knew very little about their personalities.

There were some really dark moments in this book… and I found it really hard to figure out who I was supposed to empathise with. I was really disappointed that Cassandra’s character was completely ignored and not expanded upon. I couldn’t actually care about her fate, because there was nothing more of her character added than what I already knew.

I felt that this book could have been made longer and had more emotion involved to add more to the myth. I don’t think I’ll be reading this book again… and I can’t say I’ll seek out any more by this author in the future.