Ink and ShadowsStory Rating: 4 stars
Audio Rating: 4.25 stars

Narrator: Greg Tremblay
Length: 11 hours, 8 minutes

Audiobook Buy Links: Audible
Book Buy Links: Amazon | All Romance


 

Part-time tattoo artist, and heroin addict Kismet Andreas has a problem, one that he shares with the insane. In addition to being able to see his dead brother, he can now see creatures that could not be real, and the only way to preserve his sanity is with heroin, an odd savior indeed. Kismet unknowingly becomes the target of a powerful and power-hungry magus, Michael Beckett, who is using Kismet to further is goal of being reunited with his love, the immortal, Faith.

Pestilence, also known as Mal, is the youngest of the horsemen. Scorned by War, tolerated by Famine, and coddled by Death, Mal feels out of place. In the horsemen’s attempts to deal with Beckett and his creatures summoned  from the veil to locate and capture Kismet, Mal becomes attached to Kismet, feeling a kinship with the troubled man. Even with Kismet under the protection of the horsemen, Beckett makes a play for Kismet and makes an unprecedented play at the horsemen’s very doorstep.

I will admit yet again that I had no idea what this story was about when I selected it, just that it was written by Ford, and it was a *swoon* an audiobook. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it is a story of immortal beings, centered on the four horsemen. How cool, I thought!

Although Ink and Shadows is not a romance novel, it did have threads of romance, and deep friendships that brought a bit of humanity to the characters. Mal and Kismet had much in common, both feeling like outcasts, and therefore drawn together. I liked their personalities, flaws, strength, and all. Mal was such a sweet guy, considering his calling, and I felt empathy at Kismet’s desperate attempts to escape his hellish reality. Of the many secondary characters, I enjoyed War the best, with his volatile and snarky personality and his use of creative nicknames for Pestilence, like Pest and Cooties. He brought a levity to a dark and complex story.

That being said, I have mixed emotions about Ink and Shadows, primarily because the first third of the story drew me in with its unique view of the horsemen, the supporting immortals, and the solid world building. I quickly grew to like, or dislike, the characters and could visualize what was described. Ford’s skill in this regard was flawless. The characters and conflict firmly established, I was thrown into the roller coaster ride that was the second third of the story, enthralled with the events unfolding, the additional world building, including the descriptions of the veil and its gruesome inhabitants. Where the story didn’t work for me was at the end, where the events felt like they dragged and got rather confusing. At times, I could no longer visualize the location of the big battle, nor did I understand how the players involved could match some of the events described. I also found that the level of violence and gore was beyond my comfort level, but that last is my issue, not that of the story.

Greg Tremblay has always been one for top-notch characterizations and production value. Ink and Shadows presented a challenge in terms of the variety of characters, both male and female, with distinctive accents. For the most part, Tremblay addressed these areas fairly well, giving characters their own voices, but there was a noticable lack of consistency throughout the story in this regard. Though Tremblay’s performance was good, it wasn’t to the level in Ink and Shadows that I have heard from him in other books. All things considered, those gaps were not too detrimental to my enjoyment of the story.

A review copy of this book was provided by DSP Publications.

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