This was such a unique story. The magic system took me a beat to get into but I really liked it. I loved the writing- lyrical without being pretentious or tedious. And I have to hand it to the narrator- she had to do so many accents but I thought she did them all really well. This was a great way to end my reading year! 

There were some twists I should have seen coming but didn’t. It was really nice to let my brain just be consumed with the read rather than figuring out the angles. I definitely recommend going in with an escapist mindset and letting the fun and horror wash over you. 

𝘔𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮 • 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘈𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 ⁣⁣⁣
3 𝘗𝘖𝘝 • 𝘍𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘺 • 𝘓𝘎𝘉𝘛𝘘⁣

Give me a book about books and a well constructed magical system to sink my teeth into and I'm content. This book did both 🙌🏽

It kicks off with a mystery/thriller vibe as the two FMCs try to figure out how their father was killed by his magical books. There is a third POV, another magical book collector and scribe, and it takes a good half of the book before their storylines cross. 

I kept waiting for the romance to kick in. While there is a hint of a romance, it's not enough to make this a romantasy.

There are major witchy vibes due to the spells, herbs, and casting, although no one in the book is actually a witch. Also, for a book without vampires, they certainly spilled a lot of blood and the MMC spends the entirety of the book anemic. This is not the book for you if you dislike needles and blood. So file that as a trigger warning.

This was a very strong debut novel and by the end I was vibing hard. It was the perfect reading for fall season. I'll definitely be happy to read more from Emma Törzs in the future!

TW: parental death and death in general, needles, blood, violence, assault, gore (mild).

#booksaboutbooks #emmatörzs #inkbloodsisterscribe #fantasybooks #magicalrealism #lgbtqbooks #queerbooks #bookstagram #bookreviews #bookreviewer #bookreview #bookrecs #witchybooks 

I had to struggle through more than 50% of the book to get to the interesting part. I didn’t like constant povs jumping back and forth.

Also Nicholas is there essentially like a lote dump character which is meh

I was skeptical at first but this book sucked me in and was a brilliant and fun story. 
Also, very happy to see that this book didn’t suffer from the “North American writer who gets the language wrong when writing books set in / featuring characters from other English-speaking countries” problem I’ve come across so often recently. Thank you, Emma Törzs (and editors) for allowing me to maintain my sense of immersion in this particular and important way.