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

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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. As authors play with plots, tropes, and themes, the definitions of genres get delightfully dicey, and that’s when fiction is at its most creative and refreshing. Such is the case with Ink Blood Sister Scribe. The best kind of books do not simply expand our world, they let in light from new ones. Törzs's spellbinding Ink Blood Sister Scribe embodies that completely. Chilling and charming in equal parts, Törzs's debut is a love letter to stories everywhere." — Roshani Chokshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Tale of the Flower Bride This is probably the part that I like the most, though I feel like it's not explored enough. Most of the magic is just around wards, spying, and then finding/possessing/hoarding/hiding these sources of power. It seems like the magic that can be done is nearly infinite, but the tiny sliver that we see is just a series of very basic magics that have been done time and time again. Törzs's spellbinding fantasy debut imagines a parallel Earth where gruesome magical spell books are written with the blood and bodies of people known as Scribes...Törzs's lyrical, idiosyncratic prose...elevates proceedings. This is a must-read.

Emma Törzs - Penguin Books UK

But what is Ink Blood Sister Scribe, really? Is it a book about books? Yes. Is it a mystery? A book about sisters? About family secrets? Yes, yes, and yes. Nicholas is similar to Esther in that magic doesn't seem to interact with him. Only, his upbringing has taught him much more about what that means. He is a Scribe and can actually write new spell books. When he was orphaned, his uncle took over his care and Nicholas has essentially been catered to and fawned over his entire childhood. He is the only living Scribe his uncle is grateful to use him and allow him to create new spells, which they can sell and profit from. His uncle is also determined to keep Nicholas in a gilded cage. Nicholas has barely interacted with any person that has not been paid to interact with him. He is isolated, slowly going crazy without any meaningful connections in his life, and also slowly dying as he is continually pushed to use more and more blood to create spells. Nicholas's uncle's partner, Maram, who feels like family to Nicholas, seems to step in and give Nicholas a set of instructions for escaping his uncle. Nicholas and his bodyguard, Collins flee and run into Esther. I also found Nicholas’ upbringing quite fascinating and really enjoyed the juxtaposition between his own sheltered upbringing and that of Esther and Joanne’s, which, despite the similarities highlights just how severely lonely and starved of affection he is. Seeing how easily Nicholas risks his own well being to gain approval was genuinely quite heartbreaking—and his earnest attempts at friendship, with both his surly bodyguard and Esther made me want to give him a big hug.Chilling and charming ... Törz's debut is a love letter to stories everywhere.' Roshani Chokshi, The Last Tale of the Flower Bride The plot of "Ink, Blood, Sister, Scribe" is well-paced, balancing moments of action and suspense with building the magic and world system. The story unfolds gradually, which gave me time to absorb the intricate details of the plot while it built tension toward the climactic moments. The three different characters balanced the plot well, and all contributed to it. As for the plot itself, I did find some of the assumptions the characters made rather *convenient*, and there were a couple inconsistencies, but overall my reading experience was great—it was well-written, I flew through it, and if the "big bad villain" identity was predictable, I enjoyed his demise very much 👀 Ink Blood Sister Scribe is so many things at once: an adventure, a puzzle, a twisty thriller, and a tender romance. . . . I adored it.” – ALIX E. HARROW

Emma Törzs About — Emma Törzs

Because of myself and my audience, I have to mention the biggest surprise of this book: its Jewishness. In fact, I had no idea it had any Jewish characters, and was so pleasantly surprised to see the casual representation for most of the story, but even more so to see the characters' connection to Judaism emotionally move the story in a moment of need. It meant a whole lot to me. In general, I was really a fan of this book's diversity. Two of the three main characters were queer (likely bisexual), one of the characters was half-Mexican, and another was disabled, using a prosthetic eye. Ink, Blood, Sister, Scribe, is a magical book that reminded me of why I loved reading in the first place. I fell in love with Torzs's writing style and how she made this magical book come to life. I am eager to read what else she has in store! My amazing body, yes, obviously,” said Pearl, whose lips were now trailing along the sensitive shell of Esther’s ear. 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. I love when magic is treated in a new and interesting way, and I got it in this novel. The characters were all distinct and likeable and had their flaws. When the storylines all came together, this book started to sing for me.This is a poignant book about power, knowledge and how greed can capitalise on magic and something that deserves to be shared with the world.