Ink of Blood

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

Ideally, I’d give this book 2.5 stars out of 5. I couldn’t honestly say that it was better than the first book. It wasn’t exactly worse… but I took off half a star due to Aimee toeing the line of a Mary Sue-like character.

I did think it was interesting to see that Damian was shown to be more of a grey character, but I felt especially disappointed in Aimee. While I could understand why she was reluctant to take that step into darkness by taking Damian’s life… I did feel that she didn’t exactly fight against the vampire who’d basically stolen her first life and caused her absolute misery.

While I did find many of the other characters interesting, I couldn’t see a reason for Marc to suddenly decide to betray Aimee. While there were hints of foreshadowing, his actions were completely out of character… and I strongly disliked Aimee’s reactions to him and Naomi, since I didn’t feel those were the actions of a strong character.

I did like the fact that there were other supernatural creatures in the book, but I was disappointed not to have the opportunity to learn more about them. I would have thought Aimee would be a good way of allowing readers to learn more about the world… but she seemed to be far too self-absorbed to want to know more about the world she’d been dragged further into.

While there were some small elements of tension in the book, I felt a lot of those weren’t really allowed to come to fruition, given the amount of telling rather than showing that went on. I also found myself hit over the head with some really obvious foreshadowing.

Because the POV kept switching (even though it was in third person), I felt there was little in the way of mystery. I would have preferred to be allowed to form my own opinions of the characters and situations, rather than being told by the main characters.

I have begun reading book three, but so far, the series hasn’t met my expectations.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I have a few mixed feelings about this book. While I thought the idea was a really good one and I knew Dawn from Dawn of Hope, I found the sequel harder to read than the first book. The concept was a really interesting one… but I didn’t feel that there was very much tension in this book.

While it was good to see that there was more dialogue in this book, I did think that there were quite a few scenes that were glossed over. Due to the constant switching between first and third person, I did find the story to be quite hard to follow. And there wasn’t very much in the way of mystery, due to being told what was going on from outside sources… something I felt really didn’t work, since I spent most of the book waiting for the bad stuff to happen.

It was good to see more of some of the other characters in the book, though Dawn’s friend did seem to take a backseat. I also felt that, when Dawn attended college, one of the professors was extremely unprofessional… and I honestly can’t see someone getting away with revealing all the sordid details of one of their students’ pasts in the same way the sociology professor did.

I felt that Dawn came across as much more of an immature character in this book. I wasn’t sure exactly what she was trying to do for a lot of the book. While it was good to see that she did make mistakes, I felt that her comments about being self-absorbed were completely accurate.

I did feel that there wasn’t much in the way of relationship development. Maurice’s actions had no effect on me, because Dawn didn’t seem to care about him as a person… only that he was a ‘hunky reporter’.

I liked the inclusion of the news reports, though I felt that they kept reiterating what had been stated in the narration. I also really liked the song Johnny wrote targeting the tobacco company. I would have liked to see more of his interactions with Tripper… more focus on the family and other relationships.

There were some good aspects to this book, but I felt a lot of it could have been expanded upon and it should have stuck with first or third person… not both, since there was no tension in knowing the twists beforehand.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I have some mixed feelings about this book. While I do think vampires are over-used in popular culture, I also thought that this book had a blurb that sounded quite intriguing… especially because it also seemed to involve reincarnation.

I felt that there wasn’t very much of the storyline explained. While that worked really well for Aimee’s past lives, I didn’t feel that it worked for her present life. I found myself thrown into a confusing life that seemed to have ended in disaster that I had no idea of the cause of. I felt that the romantic connection between Marc and Aimee didn’t feel realistic… and I kept having it hit over my head that they’d had all these conversations in the past of her current life; but there was very little character development shown.

While there was enough dread threaded through the storyline in regards to Damian… I did find myself questioning why Marc was willing to take Aimee into such a dangerous situation. His reasoning really didn’t read as very good in regards to that.

I was completely confused by Enric’s and Natasha’s roles in this book. While there were some hints about Enric’s past, I didn’t feel that his connection to Aimee was shown or developed. It was just ‘mystical’… and therefore unbelievable, even in the supernatural world of this book.

I did think that the way the vampires were created (at least with the maze and the book of the dead) was really intriguing, but I felt that Aimee didn’t ask any questions. She showed no sign of curiosity and I didn’t feel like she had much spirit. In my opinion, she was a very passive character… and I found her really hard to connect to emotionally.

I would have liked to see more of Aimee’s background before she was turned into a vampire. I found myself confused about what her past had been like with her parents… while her marriage had clearly been bad, the references to her family life were very contradictory.

Although I do have the next book/s on my Kindle, I probably wouldn’t have purchased them. The book is a bit disappointing and I do think it could be expanded on.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I thought this book was a really intriguing read. Although there was something of a love triangle in this book, I really liked the fact that Em, Zach and Rogue had a really close relationship… even though Zach and Rogue clearly both had crushes on Em.

I was a bit disappointed that Em had such a bad relationship with her parents and older sister, since I felt that was far too cliched. I really liked Em’s relationship with her little sister… and also with Tutu. I would have liked to see more of them… especially with Tutu’s ability to see and communicate with ghosts.

I would have liked some more details about how the different gifts worked and related to the dream travelling abilities. I really disliked Em’s father… and her mother wasn’t much better. Dee just irritated me a lot.

I was able to empathise with Em really well, but I would have liked to see how she interacted with other people outside of the small amount I was able to see. For instance, I would have liked to see more of the Middlings. It was good to see Em interacting with Dean, but for the most part, I wasn’t sure what the differences were in the two different groups in the society… apart from the obvious difference in ability.

I thought it was good that there were obvious elements of mystery and tension throughout this book. I did think that Rogue should have told Em about what was really going on before he did… and I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he’d been running away. I was actually surprised that Em and Zach weren’t more upset with him for how he’d left.

I did feel that the world was very condensed and felt like it was very small. While the place Em lived was very small, I was a bit disappointed not to see and learn more about the dream travelling.

I really didn’t like the president’s character, but the first one-on-one interaction he had with Em made me think of him as a wolf… which made him even more creepy.

I did find this book to be a really entertaining read and I thought it worked well as an introduction to the world. In the future, I would like to read more books in this series.