Ink Blood Sister Scribe: the Sunday Times bestselling edge-of-your-seat fantasy thriller

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The writing is luscious and enchanting, as magical as the story it’s telling. The book takes you from rich, endorsed, sprawling mansions to cozy, comforting cottages hidden near the woods. The writing was touching. Intimate and soft, it was beautiful to read. Ink Blood Sister Scribe has an intriguing premise: two half sisters guarding their family's library of magical books. Unfortunately, this interesting premise is marred by cringey dialogue and an amateurish narrative style that prevented me from developing any emotional connections with the characters. Pearl raised her hand, those long fingers wrapped around the stem of an imaginary glass. “Here’s to the crowd. May they love us.”

Emma Törzs About — Emma Törzs

Because of their different duties and different schedules, their paths hadn’t really crossed again until the end of the first month, when Esther had hung a sign in the gym looking for sparring buddies. Boxing, Muy Thai, BJJ, MMA, Krav Maga, let’s fight! :) :) :) She’d added the smiley faces to counteract the aggression of “fight,” but had immediately regretted it when another electrician—an obnoxiously tall white guy from Washington who insisted everyone call him “J-Dog”— saw it and began giving her endless shit. Esther: Joanna's older sister who has been on the run for 10 years, after her father commanded her to move to a new location every November. Estranged from her family, and in a constant state of motion, she has no ties. But after spending the past year in Antarctica, she's decided to stay another season. For the first time she has a reason to stay: a girlfriend she's really starting to feel something for. And besides, what could possibly go wrong? Estranged half-sisters Joanna and Esther haven't seen each other for 10 years. Joanna lives an increasingly lonely life amid a houseful of magical books while trying to master the secret of ink used to write them. Esther lives a wandering life and is now working in Antarctica. Meanwhile, in the incredible magical Library, a pampered and carefully protected young man begins to discover truths about the Library and his role in it. Esther and Joanna were good characters for me and their storylines were well developed. I found them both interesting and convincing. However Nicholas was never very convincing to me - he felt more like a caricature of a posh boy. His storyline seemed rather naive and possibly contrived. In terms of the magic content I thought this was generally good. In particular the mirror magic was very good and well used.Considering it's a standalone novel, the plot was rather contained and I personally enjoyed that: I read so many Fantasy series that it made for a good change. I do think that expectations matter: if you go into it expecting a Fantasy novel with complex world-building and in-depth characterization, you might be disappointed. First, it feels more like a literary/mystery novel with magical elements than a Fantasy book. Secondly, I'm not saying that the characters are one-dimensional, because they aren't, and I did care about them, but they're still sketched in rather broad lines, and some of the relationships shifts were SO abrupt that they didn't make sense to me (*cough* what the second romance even was? Is that insta-lust or whatever? I'm too demi for that haha)(also I had another romance in mind for this specific character, ngl). Törzs's debut novel features a wonderfully realized and atmospheric world and a plot filled with unexpected twists...Törzs does a fantastic job creating a gripping and suspenseful story that keeps readers on their toes and wanting more. Fans of The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern will love this magic- and suspense-filled novel. The following is from Emma Törzs' Ink Blood Sister Scribe . Törzs is a writer, teacher, and occasional translator based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her fiction has been honored with an NEA fellowship in prose, a World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction, and an O. Henry Prize. Her stories have been published in journals such as Ploughshares, Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, and American Short Fiction . She received her MFA from the University of Montana, Missoula. Un fantasy libroso/stregonesco che interpreta a suo modo quello che consideriamo il "potere" di una biblioteca, con libri raccolti, tramandati, custoditi e inseguiti nei secoli.

Ink Blood Sister Scribe - Goodreads Shelby’s review of Ink Blood Sister Scribe - Goodreads

In the house, surrounded by the remnants of her father's life, books buzzing beneath her feet, she sometimes felt so alone she worried she might vanish like the ink in an overused book. But here, with wildlife all around her and magic sweet in the air like good cider, she felt her lines and colors returning, her edges darkening, her core filled in. First things first: I wanted to love this. I love the purple US cover and would've been so happy to slot this into my shelves, but I just don't think it's for me. (sorry, kerry!) Do you think the scientists drink so much because they’re making up for all the years they spent studying?” Esther said.

BookBrowse Review

I think the sister relationship and the daughter/mother relationship were the strongest here, but still pretty weak overall. Part of it is that the characters don't feel real to me since they never make choices and don't really seem to have passions outside of the scripted path I mentioned above in the section about their agency. Likewise, the romantic relationship is so brief and unimportant to the story that I honestly forgot about it until it resurfaced at the end. Many thanks to HarperCollins for a free copy of this book. Please assume all normal legal jargon here- but most importantly, these thoughts are my own. I recieved an e-ARC via Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions remain my own. Ink Blood Sister Scribe is itself a magical book, brimming with all the elements that make a story sing—an engrossing plot, characters that steal your heart and make you laugh out loud, and a compelling energy that reveals a true storyteller at work. What a gorgeously satisfying read. Sometime over the long winter, however, Esther’s extroversion had started to atrophy and with it the mask of good cheer she usually donned each morning along with her uniform. Now she gazed up at the ceiling, industrial white like the industrial white walls and industrial white hallways and her industrial white coworkers.

Ink Blood Sister Scribe: the Sunday Times bestselling edge-of

I absolutely loved this story and all the twists and turns, including the complicated family dynamics; however, I will read anything based in Vermont or a remote location. I will also never pass on a story about magical libraries or books about books. If I was an agent, this would absolutely be my #mswl. All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna's isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy. In the process, they'll uncover a world of magic far bigger and more dangerous than they ever imagined, and all the secrets their parents kept hidden; secrets that span centuries, continents, and even other libraries...All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna's isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy. In the process, they'll uncover a world of magic far bigger and more dangerous than they ever imagined, and all the secrets their parents kept hidden; secrets that span centuries, continents, and even other libraries . . ."