Review: Better Then Some Indie Books, But...
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 15, 2013
I'll break this into likes and dislikes.Dislikes:1)Chronic overuse of the word "intimated". I kept thinking "Gad's, there's that stinkin word again and again and again." It was used in every chapter.When this type of adjective is needed, a good author needs to use a smattering of similar words that mean the same thing so the reader isn't seeing the same word everywhere.2)Along the same lines as number one, certain things were repeated much too often. One other review mentions the "knitted eyebrows." I agree. How many times can a character knit their eyebrows? I was actually tempted to count all the times this was used. Readers are smart and pick up on overuse of a word, phrase or mannerism. Change it up and keep from reusing the same thing over again and again.3)Vampires were referred to as people. They are not.4)I can forgive much of the English slang (British) but "smeldt" is the foulest, poorest grammar choice I have ever seen. You smelled something. Not smeldt it. It is accepted there but it's just so wrong. Every other version of British slang is perfectly fine as long as the story is not taking place in the US. Many British indie authors, use their British slang, but place their story and characters in the United States where Americans just don't speak like that. This author didn't do that, so it was fine.5)Hire an editor before releasing your books and the ratings will soar. There were many many mistakes. You can't pay for a nice front cover and other little things you purchased while putting your book together and disregard the inside work which is the most important. Your WORK is the most important thing. Edit it. I'd much prefer a plain brown wrapper on the book if it was perfectly edited.6)I get concerned about truthfulness in reviews when to me many of them appear to be staged. There is a very large grouping of five star ratings with short comments all within a small amount of time. I've seen this many times. If a book has problems like this one does, having some staged reviews to make the book appear better and more popular doesn't really work. All the real reviews will eventually come and the top reviews stick out like you got help from friends, family, fellow authors and perhaps created accounts just for this purpose. All of the five star ratings that appeared right next to each other in a two to three week period of time just isn't plausible nor believable. Maybe they're real, but they don't look like it.7)I also had a problem with the entire book getting all the way to the prophesy being fulfilled only to have it be a gigantic mistake.  Huh?  Really odd.  Its like you just read a long book and never got anywhere with it.I'm done picking it apart....Likes:Each character, separately, were created rather well and the author was creative. There were many different characters introduced here and it's not easy making them different and interesting. It was a bit daunting to have all these different vampire clans, but at least this book didn't sound like everyone else's.Thank you for keeping pages and pages of filler sex out of it. I much prefer an author show gradual love between two people then fill pages of sexual situations. The writer did a nice job of keeping the tension going and slowly building the relationship. I'm guessing this was in the YA cat.Thank you once again for making Prophecy a strong independant woman. My favorite part about the book was when she tore into Valentine when she thought he was telling her what to do and that he did not own her. Bravo. I'm not a fan of swearing in books, but the use of it in this situation was perfect and if it had been me, I'd have done the exact same thing.All in all, a good cast of characters and enough interest to maybe see where this story goes in the future. Decent job!