Review – Angel’s Ink (The Asylum Tales, Book 1) by Jocelynn Drake (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 338 pages
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Release Date: October 16, 2012
ISBN-13: 978-0062117854
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Asylum Tales
Source: Swapped through Paperbackswap.com
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Meet Gage, a magical tattoo artist trying to remain hidden and alive in a world where elves, faeries, trolls, werewolves, and vampires mingle freely with humans, and warlocks and witches rule the roost with merciless cruelty. Angel’s Ink indelibly marks the beginning of something phenomenal and every reader whose tastes run to the supernatural.”
This is the first book in the Angel’s Ink trilogy. It was an okay urban fantasy that seemed to pull lots of elements from urban fantasy series that have already been written. I thought the story was a bit scattered and that the characters were a bit underdeveloped. However, it was okay.
This story reminded me a lot of the Dresden Files. Gage is a warlock that has fallen out of favor with the Ivory Towers. He is trying to keep a low profile running a tattoo parlor. However, things get rough for him when in one day he draws the attention of the Guardian that’s supposed to watch his magic use, accidentally makes a girl immortal..drawing the attention of a grim reaper, and is almost killed by his old teacher.
A lot happens at once very quickly in this book and you can tell that Drake is struggling to juggle all the rapidly introduced plot lines. Because of all these intertwining plotlines the character development really suffers and characters that could be really interesting end up lacking.
This is more of an urban fantasy(UF) than a paranormal romance(PNR); in fact the romance in here is pretty weak. The love scenes that are here are poorly written and awkward, so if you are looking for a good PNR this isn’t it.
This book also seems to steal a lot of elements from other PNR/UF series out there. There just wasn’t a lot unique here. Pretty much everything was mediocre and this whole book was kind of blah.
Overall this was a mediocre urban fantasy book. Some of the plot elements are interesting but there are too many things introduced at once and as a result character development really suffers. This is a lot in here that seems like its pulled from other UF/PNR series. I am not going to be continuing the series, it was just too “blah” for me.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Goodreads Reading Challenge
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge
