The Dark of You

Broken Ink, Book 2

By: Jack L. Pyke

Narrated by: Dan Calley

Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

Get the composition right of tattoo ink, you have the latest mind-control drug on the market. It’s the sex-traders’ dream, or worst nightmare, depending on the concentrated dose of the ink—and just who’s wearing it….

Or that’s how it was supposed to go down.

For ex-MI7 killer Kiyen, his ink ability has been thrown into reverse now his ink has been cut away. Drowning fast and hard in the land of the “normals”, he’s struggling to come to terms with this new way of ghosting through life.

As a Second Ink and low-grade empath, Fal’s left to pick up the pieces. Yet when the origins of the ink drip feed into Kiyen’s and Fal’s lives, Fal finds he’s in for a fight to the death to stop Kiyen falling into a darkness in soul no one saw coming.

There’s a rougher, darker soul walking through UK streets. One that’s about to turn Kiyen’s head with the true origins of...family.

©2021 Jack L. Pyke (P)2022 Jack L. Pyke

Beautiful and complicated

After Broken Ink, I was anxiously awaiting this book, and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s an incredibly creative, deeply sexual love story with elements of science fiction, which I absolutely loved.

My only problem with it was the huge number of characters and things happening at the same time, it was a bit of work to listen to and follow.

This leads me to the narrator. I love his voice and I loved it in the other Pyke series “Don’t.” But, here, the combination of his heavy accent, rapid-fire speech, and the number of characters with similar voices was difficult. About a third of the way through, being confused and not understanding too well, I discovered that slowing it down to 0.9 speed made a huge difference. I started from the beginning at the slower speed and was able to understand much better.

The plot is complex and I still don’t understand everything, but it was a thing of beauty nevertheless. I look forward to the next one, even though I know it’ll be awhile. It’ll give me a good reason to listen to the first two books again!

Brilliantly dark

I’ve struggled with this review and it’s horrifically overdue, but I wanted to find the right words – and I’m still not sure I can.

I loved Jack’s Don’t series and so have embraced Broken Ink. Many of the dark elements are similar, although this book has the added paranormal elements. The first book had me entranced, and I wished I’d gone back and done a re-read before tackling this one, but I managed just fine.

There’s a lot going on in the book, but, again, it centres around Kiyen. He’s fighting to keep hold of his found family while dealing with dark forces. This book can be graphic in its violence – but it all fits with the story.

I enjoyed it thoroughly – all seventeen-plus hours – made all the more wonderful by Dan Calley’s amazing narration. He and Jack make magic with each book. I look forward to more if there are more to come…