Michelle Herbert reviews Blood Ink by Dana Fredsti…
Blood Ink is the second novel in the Lilith series and follows on from the events of The Spawn of Lilith. When we meet Lee again, she is struggling with being independent and paying her own way. Lee has been effectively blacklisted from working on movie sets because she is still seen as the person who killed a producer, rather than the fact that she saved a lot of lives on her last job.
Blood Ink as a story is a slow burn, we get to know more about Lee and her relationships in the aftermath of The Spawn of Lilith. This means that if you are reading the book just for the fight scenes, you won’t find one until almost a hundred pages in, when the first demon attacks. I didn’t find this a problem as I enjoyed seeing the world through Lee’s eyes. This also allows us to revisit characters from the first novel as Lee tries to catch a break. This doesn’t mean that the book is slow paced, rather it builds on what we already know and then allows us to enjoy the action as Lee takes the only option available to her.
Lee’s story is interspersed with strange happenings in New Orleans. In these sections, we meet characters who stumble into a tattoo parlour and then start disappearing. The foreshadowing is clear, something big is coming, but how Lee is tied up with this is intriguing. With these chapters, we know that Lee will be heading to the Big Easy, and it is nice to see her in a different setting from that of the previous novel, as we get to meet different supernatural characters and Lee is also removed from her comfort zone. It was interesting to see how Blood Ink deals with some of the past horrors of New Orleans, especially the stories that involve the LaLaurie House.
I really enjoyed Blood Ink; it is an easy read, but gives us more background on the history of Lee’s family and also shows her being more relatable as she attempts to trust more and be more open to new possibilities. I was entertained by the tone of the book and was glad to see the pop references were still there and that Lee’s character worked so well in New Orleans. Where the series goes from here, only Dana Fredsti knows but I am looking forward to seeing what happens to Lee next.
Michelle Herbert
