Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs
Age Group: Adult
Format: Fiction
Genres and Categories: Books about Books, Librarian Characters, Magic Users, Magic Books, Magical Realism, Urban Fantasy, Physical Disabilities, Queer Characters, Sapphic Characters
My Rating:
Published on: 11th June 2024
Pages: 416
Disability Representation: Missing Eye
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In this spellbinding debut novel, two estranged half-sisters tasked with guarding their family's library of magical books must work together to unravel a deadly secret at the heart of their collection--a tale of familial loyalty and betrayal, and the pursuit of magic and power.

For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books. Books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements--books of magic that half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect.

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 . . .

In the great tradition of Ninth House, The Magicians, and Practical Magic, this is a suspenseful and richly atmospheric novel that draws readers into a vast world filled with mystery and magic, romance, and intrigue--and marks the debut of an extraordinary new voice in speculative fiction.

This book was provided for free by NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

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In Ink Blood Sister Scribe, Emma Törzs delivers a delightful world of books, magic and 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 affected her, compared to Nicholas, who had no siblings.

Nicholas was an interesting character who could have quite easily 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 was “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 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.

About Emma Törzs

Emma 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 debut novel, INK BLOOD SISTER SCRIBE, was an instant Sunday Times Bestseller, a National Indie bestseller, a Good Morning America Book Club pick, an Indie Next pick, one of the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2023, one of NPR’s Best Books of 2023, and acclaimed by reviewers from the New York Times, NPR, the Washington Post, Locus Magazine, the Guardian, Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, and more. It’s available, or soon to be available, in 13 languages and counting.

Her stories have been published in journals such as Ploughshares, Uncanny Magazine, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and American Short Fiction. She received her MFA from the University of Montana, Missoula, and is an enthusiastic member of the Clarion West class of 2017. She teaches currently at Macalester College.

Website | Goodreads

Thanks for reading my review for Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs!

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