Review of ‘New ink on life’ by Jennie Davids.

3.75 Stars. I didn’t really have any expectations going into this book. I don’t have any tattoos but I’ve always been “the support friend” to go and help distract my friends from the pain of theirs. Personally, I’d love to geek out and get a big dragon tattoo going down my arm, but I’m not doing that at the local ‘buy one get one free’ tattoo shop. I would want to go to NYC or LA and get a real piece of art, so until then I’m inkless. But luckily, being inkless didn’t stop me one bit from really enjoying this book. I was hooked from the first few pages and I found the story had a nice flow that was really easy to read. This is not perfect, but this is a quality debut book.

We all have our own personal triggers, mine happens to be books about cancer. I’ve lost so many people in real life that I don’t like reading about cancer in a piece of fiction. While this book was about a character having cancer, it was about her being a warrior that is fighting the disease. Not only was she a warrior against the disease but she wants to take that approach in how she lives her life. It was really nice to see this different way to address such an awful disease and I thought it was really well done.

Besides this being a book about tattoos and finding your own personal strength, it is a romance. As other reviews have mentioned, MJ, one of the mains is a complete jerk at times. I actually think I would call her an ice king. Cassie, on the other hand is the complete opposite, a total people pleaser. These two are so opposite that they almost don’t work together. I was actually scratching my head wondering how did this pairing work? I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because they both were what the other needed. Cassie needed more of MJ’s strength and MJ needed the warmth and caring of Cassie. Whether I’m right or not, this paring worked for me. I enjoyed them together and found all of the intimate and sex scenes to be well done.

I’m really glad I read this one. It was more enjoyable than I expected and I think romance fans will enjoy this too. It looks like this may become a series starring other characters from the tattoo shop, if so, I will absolutely be reading more.

An ARC was given to me for an honest review.