Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine

Book one in The Great Library series

Publisher: NAL

Publication date: July 7^th, 2015

Source: Netgalley

Rating: 3.5 hearts

Synopsis

Ruthless and supremely powerful, the Great Library is now a presence in every major city, governing the flow of knowledge to the masses. Alchemy allows the Library to deliver the content of the greatest works of history instantly—but the personal ownership of books is expressly forbidden.

Jess Brightwell believes in the value of the Library, but the majority of his knowledge comes from illegal books obtained by his family. Jess has been sent to be his family’s spy, but his loyalties are tested in the final months of his training to enter the Library’s service.

When his friend inadvertently commits heresy by creating a device that could change the world, Jess discovers that those who control the Great Library believe knowledge is more valuable than any human life—and soon both heretics and books will burn.…

Review

Ink and Bone has a very original subject, the setting is in Alexandria Library and I think that’s very nice. We are following some postulant, Jess, Khalila, Thomas, Morgan, Glain, Dario with their Scholar, Christopher Wolfe and Santi, the Captain.

The place where the story takes place is very well described and I have no problem to imagine myself there. It’s a beautiful library with Automaton and rare books.

The characters are very different, Jess is the most important, he’s smart and he knows a lot of things due to his family knowledge. Thomas is an inventor and he’ll become Jess’s friends. Dario is an arrogant ass but I kind of like him. Khalila is the smart one, she knows what she wants. Morgan is a mystery and the love attraction for Jess and Glain is the muscles, she want to become a member of High Garda.

I like them and the story was good but the pace is very slow and it’s the first time that I read a book in one week, It’s very hard to explain why Ink and Bone isn’t a must read for me. I think I didn’t identify myself to the characters and the rhythm or lack of rhythm is probably a bad thing for me. The second half of the book was better and I want to read the second book and know what happens to the characters.

The writing style is good, it’s my first Rachel Caine’s book but I like her style, the only problem is the pace as I already said.

About the author

Rachel Caine’s rich, diverse bibliography of more than 45 books in print covers many categories and genres. She started out writing horror and fantasy as Roxanne Longstreet (Stormriders, The Undead, Red Angel, Cold Kiss, Slow Burn) before switching to the name Roxanne Conrad and publishing romantic suspense and mystery (Copper Moon, Bridge of Shadows, Exile). By 2003, she began to publish under her current pseudonym, specializing in urban fantasy, science fiction, and paranormal young adult fiction.

She has been writing original fiction since the age of fourteen, and professionally published since 1991. She graduated from Socorro High School in El Paso Texas (where she was a UIL all-state champion in music and journalism) and went on to earn an accounting degree from Texas Tech University. She played professionally as a musician for several years once out of college, but ultimately gave up the music for writing.

She’s had a varied “day job” career, including web design, graphic arts, accounting, payroll management, insurance investigation, and (most recently) corporate communications and crisis management. (It all counts as research.)

Rachel loves reading, writing, and mild amounts of arithmetic when required … but she has a special place in her heart for history, music, and science, and you’ll find those themes in many of her works.

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