Emma Törzs

Originally posted on Just Geeking by.

Content warnings:
This book contains scenes of death (including on page death of a parent), ritual sacrifice, violence, torture, blood-letting, gore, kidnapping and physical assault. It also contains abusive relationship (emotional, physical and coercive control) by one family member to other relatives, including causing permanent physical disfigurement to a child.

In Ink Blood Sister Scribe, Emma Törzs delivers a delightful world of books, magic and show more found family that had me gripped from the start. All their lives Esther and Joanna have known that magic exists in the shape of books that give temporary powers to people. While Esther left home at eighteen and left the world of magic behind her, Joanna remained behind and continued to protect their family’s collection from falling into the hands of those who would misuse it. It is a duty that she takes as seriously as their father, but when he dies suddenly, Joanna is left alone to carry on their legacy alone. When Esther doesn’t return home for the funeral, Joanna is hurt and confused, but Esther was told to stay away and keep moving lest something bad happen. Most importantly, she was told not to tell her sister.

Meanwhile, far away in London lives a boy who has also grown up surrounded by books. But Nicolas’ life couldn’t be more different from the Kalotay sisters. Part of a wealthy family with an even richer knowledge of books, his entire life revolves around them. His legacy is one of blood, and danger, and his life is inexplicably tangled up with Esther and Joanna’s lives.

As two legacies and decades of events come to a head, a group of young people find themselves making difficult decisions that will change their lives forever as everything they’ve ever known comes crashing down.

From the first few pages of Ink Blood Sister Scribe, Törzs had me completely hooked. She has a vibrant and unique writing style that breathes life into her characters. Each of them could have so easily become dull clichés, and yet Törzs’ unique style puts a stop to that. Instead, they felt like individual people to me who had been shaped by their experiences, even when those experiences had been very limited in the cases of Joanna and Nicholas. I particularly liked the way that she juxtaposed the two of these characters. Both have spent most of their time with books, and spent little time with the outside world. While they have similarities, their relationships with other people, especially with family show clear differences. As an only child I especially noted how Joanna having a sister effected her, compared to Nicholas who had no siblings.

Nicholas was an interesting character who could have quite easily have become yet another annoying rich kid. What made the difference for me was the way that Törzs kept bringing Ink Blood Sister Scribe back to books. While Nicholas made the typical rich kid comments about an average house being “small”, he then noted that something being “threadbare”. His thoughts on this instinctively jumped to books and how that was something he had only ever read about in books. On the one hand, yes it’s a very snobby thing to think, but when you think about it, it’s an incredibly sad and lonely thing to only be able to see things through the lens of books. As wonderful as they are, they exist to heighten our experiences not be the only experience.

There were moments in Ink Blood Sister Scribe that were I saw coming, and then there were layers and twists I didn’t. This is a deliciously fun and complex book with wickedly interesting world building, and my only complaint is that it appears to be a standalone that ends on a cliffhanger. It can’t (but sadly does) end like that; I need to know what happens next! So if you’re someone who hates books that end like that, probably best to avoid this one as the fact that the cover says “a novel” suggests that’s all we’re getting from this universe right now.

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This book was pretty much everything I wanted a book to be.
I loved the story and the concept, and I was so excited to see it being developed the way it was.
I loved the cast of characters and their different points of view - their lives sometimes so different from each other, longing for something else, having made sacrifices others don't even know about...
Acknowledging the complexity of human nature and the choices we make - ex: was Joanna and Esther's father right to act like he did?
The show more chapters about Esther in the Antarctic base were so well researched and evocative, not only of the place, but of what the experience might do to someone, especially someone like Esther (no spoilers here!). Some paragraphs were truly heartbreaking, some heartwarming.
The magic system was so interesting, and I feel like Emma Törzs managed to make the most of her wonderful concepts, so this book was truly a joy to read.
On top of that, the end and the evolution if the characters were very satisfying.
I loved this book!

Thank you NetGalley and Random House UK for gifting me an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! show less

In some ways Ink Blood Sister Scribe feels like it was written specifically for me.

The magic system is such a lovely mix of creepy backwoods witchiness and handwritten academic formality, two things that I love but never thought to put together. The characters feel very familiar, like they all overlap with me or people very close to me.

There are little things that feel personal too. Assuming you're just like your sibling until something shifts and you realize all the ways you're different; show more the violated feeling when you realize the adults around you are snooping through your private stuff; the embarrassment of writing a personal note while someone is watching over your shoulder.

***Mild thematic spoilers ahead***
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It treats the hereditary powers trope with the skepticism it deserves. It shows that privilege can be a prison, but it's a prison you can dismantle if you have the courage. It addresses these things thoughtfully and without being preachy.
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***End spoilers***

I rarely reread books - I don't read that fast and I have a TBR pile that's miles long - but I could see myself happily dipping back into this story several more times. show less

After reading a handful of quite heavy and challenging novels, it was great to romp through a fun supernatural adventure like [b:Ink Blood Sister Scribe|62854842|Ink Blood Sister Scribe|Emma Törzs|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1685457125l/62854842._SY75_.jpg|93533699]. I found the characters compelling, the world-building neat and interesting, and the plot fast-paced enough to get away with signposting quite heavily. The central conceit is the show more existence of magic books, which can only be written by extremely rare scribes using their own blood. A London-based library houses the largest collection of historical magical books, a scribe named Nicholas, and his odd family. Across the Atlantic, there is a much smaller archive maintained alone by a woman named Esther. The protagonists are rounded out by Esther's footloose sister Joanna and Nicholas' bodyguard Collins. I also appreciated the inclusion of a pomeranian named Sir Kiwi. The plot is well set up to gradually bring the protagonists together against an unsubtle but effective antagonist.

I've read several other novels with book-based magic so far this year ([b:The Book Eaters|58724745|The Book Eaters|Sunyi Dean|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1634139994l/58724745._SY75_.jpg|87091476] and [b:The Devil Makes Three|54860344|The Devil Makes Three|Tori Bovalino|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600202077l/54860344._SX50_.jpg|75847120]). [b:Ink Blood Sister Scribe|62854842|Ink Blood Sister Scribe|Emma Törzs|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1685457125l/62854842._SY75_.jpg|93533699] is my favourite among them to date. The magical books are a pleasingly vivid presence and the purposes for which they are used, such as highly effective NDAs, rather ingenious. I also enjoyed the settings, from a dusty farmhouse to a mansion with secret passages to an Antarctic research base. However it's the characters that form the heart of the narrative. I'm willing to forgive moments of not entirely convincing Britishness when the interpersonal dynamics are so delightful. Perhaps the real magic was the friends we made along the way. show less