Ink of Blood

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I do have some mixed feelings about this book. While I did think the blurb was a really intriguing one, I did actually feel that the book fell into some of the traps I tend to see with young adult books.

I wasn’t all that keen on the dual first person perspectives, though it was good to have the opportunity to see both sides of what was going on. And it did give me the opportunity to see what Trevor’s motives and history were.

I couldn’t get behind the relationship between Trevor and Chelsea. I didn’t really like the instant connection between them and I felt that they both became unhealthily obsessed with each other. I also really didn’t like the fact that Chelsea didn’t seem to care about leaving her family and friends. There weren’t any details about her talking to her family about not being around… which made me think that she clearly wasn’t close to her family; despite the fact that her sister’s appearance (and the way Chelsea referenced her) made it seem like they were quite close.

I found Valerie to be a fairly interesting character and it was good to see something about her motivations. I would have found her a more interesting character to see as a more central person to the plot.

Although I did like the concept of the teleporting, it would have been good to get more of an explanation as to why Chelsea was only able to teleport to those particular areas. I have to say, I did really go off Chelsea’s character by the end of the book. I felt that she was petty and didn’t care about anyone apart from Trevor and then herself.

I would have found some of the minor characters to be interesting, but there wasn’t enough time spent on many of them. By the end of the book, I found it really hard to keep a lot of the secondary characters straight in my head.

I did find the Link Pieces to be a really interesting idea and I would have liked a bit more information about them, as well as the whole war between Atlantis and Lemuria.

I’m not sure I will read the next book in this series. While the plot was intriguing, I found the romance was too unrealistic and that did spoil the book for me.

(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

The time of the witch trials is definitely one of the darkest moments in history. I wouldn’t say this book was an easy read… but I felt the author did a good job of showing the effects of the mass hysteria.

I found it easy to connect emotionally with Fiona, but less so with the other characters, who I felt ranged from being ignorant to outright cruel. I also had a really strong dislike for Burnett… and I’m not sure he was supposed to be ignorant or if there was incomplete information in researching. (The story of Jonah was wrong, as an example).

I did find it hard to differentiate between many of the minor characters. Eilidh’s grandmother was one of the ones I did find it easy to understand, though… and most of the other members of the village as a whole seemed unwilling or unable to stand up for the right thing to do… but that is something that does happen nowadays. (You’d think people would have learned…)

There were some quite dark moments in this book and I did feel quite hopeless while reading it. I wasn’t entirely sure why Dawkins wasn’t living in the village… but I disliked him as a character as much as I did Burnett. And the others in authority who had the power to refute the accusations of witchcraft but didn’t.

This book did draw me in and made me feel angry and sad at turns. I wasn’t sure exactly what was causing the goings-on in the village, but I think that lack of knowledge does make the book that much more powerful to read.

I would have liked to see more of Trent and Samuel. While their actions towards the end of the book were good, I was a bit confused about why they in particular were acting… though I suppose it could have been because they were outsiders.

The book did do a good job of showing that a cycle of this kind snowballs… and although I’d hope people would learn from the horrors of the past, the horror of the present-day makes it quite clear that people haven’t learned.

(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I would ideally give this book 2.5 stars out of 5. I really wanted to like it… but unfortunately, I felt that it needed quite a bit of editing. There were a lot of words that didn’t fit and repetition that I felt didn’t really work. (‘Cloud room’ was used three times in one paragraph, for instance).

The idea behind the book was really interesting, although I wouldn’t have said the title fit with the storyline. I felt that things came far too easy for the characters. There was very little foreshadowing and I felt that there was too much telling rather than showing. For instance, Ares was supposed to be uttering really funny lines… but nothing that I read from him should have garnered those kinds of reactions from the others.

I did think that Aiden accepted the situation far too quickly. I would have liked some more details about how him and the other three related to the gods they were apparently avatars of. There was very little actual explanation in this book… and the characters seemed to have very little curiosity about what was going on.

It was good to see the other characters like Hermes and Dionysus in this book, though I didn’t think they showed much of the personalities from the mythos. I would have liked to know more of Ares and Athena before the quest began. While it was good to see something of Ares beforehand, I didn’t have a clue about Athena’s life beforehand.

I did find myself getting quite confused about what was going on most of the time. I would have liked to see the characters have to work more for what was going on and for there to be less ‘I had a bad feeling’… that then turns out to be accurate. I know there’s instinct and all, but I didn’t feel the characters were in any real danger… and even when they got hurt/made mistakes, it was all dealt with without any consequences or problems.

I won’t be reading a sequel to this book as it stands.

(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I don’t see very much fiction involving the ‘Elders’, so when I won this book, I was happy to have the opportunity to read this book.

Despite having some confusion with some of the more minor characters, I did find this book drew me in. I had the feeling that I was only getting some of the story and that I’d missed the previous books involving Matt… but I still liked him as a character and I found him fairly easy to understand.

There were a lot of disturbing scenes in this book. Drummond especially made my skin crawl in every appearance he made. I did really like Adira’s character, even though I would likely be scared of her if I ever met her in reality.

It was good to see that the characters had to move through other countries and I liked the fact that they faced other problems than the sinkholes. The very first chapter did a really good job of setting the tone for the rest of the book… and the descriptions of the creatures were horrible enough that reading about them made me picture truly awful things.

I didn’t like Andy so much in this book, even though I had thought he was interesting in his first appearance. I thought that he didn’t really demonstrate very much intelligence and seemed to be more concerned with the women on the team than with what was going on in the world. (I don’t tend to have a problem with romance, but I felt it was kind of over-used in this particular book).

I did like the fact that the characters were in clear and obvious danger, even though some of the characters who ended up being killed were ones I didn’t really get to know very well. I did like Abrams… but I liked Hartogg a lot more. I would have liked to see more of his history and what drives him.

It was good to see the role nature played in this book as well. Despite the really dark parts in this book, I found it easy to read and there were some things I didn’t see coming. I probably would read other books involving these characters in the future.