The Invisible Ring

The Invisible Ring by Anne Bishop

Having read bits and pieces of the book before actually sitting down to read it all the way through did take away some of the mystery, but it was still enough to keep me interested in what actually happened next.
Jared was a little annoying at times, as was Lia. Their romance wasn’t developed that well, at least from her side, and the distraction at the beginning of their relationship confused the issue even more. They were cute together though, and Jared’s personality was quite different, being so unsure of himself but keeping a good front at all times. Lia had a mysterious aura around her for most of the novel, but her youth and innocence shone through most of the time.

Blaed and Thera weren’t developed as well as Jared and Lia, despite being the secondary protagonists. Krelis was the most interesting character in terms of development, since every now and then you got to see his descent into depravity and his loss of honour, as well as Dorothea’s cruelty. Both were quite squicky at times, but I suppose the main point of it is to make you squirm.

Daemon Sadi stole every scene he was in. He’s always been an interesting character, but viewed from the outside he’s just made of awesome. He was a bit of a deux ex machina, but what can you expect of a character like him? And he did reveal that he engineered the events that occurred in the book. When what happened in this book is put together with the knowledge from the other books that were set chronologically later, it just makes him more awesome. It’s a by-product of living for centuries. Though I do hope that Daemon and Jaenelle get their happily ever after, I’d rather not know about it because it’s not as fun knowing that they only have a limited amount of time together. It’s the bittersweet aspect of their relationship.

The premise of the Blood is one of the best and well thought out fantasy concepts that I’ve come across. Because the magic isn’t specific, a lot can be handwaved or just used to describe actions in general. The matriarchal society and structure is interesting, and the concept that the Darkness is just a force instead of being a good/evil entity is a departure from most fantasy. The main problem that I find after reading a few of the books set in the Realms is that the characters tend to be stock – all the witches have a few set personalities, and all the males have a certain way of thinking. A few are very individual, such as Saetan, Lucivar and Daemon, but the others could easily be pigeon holed into a few categories, especially females.