Review: Needs further editing - November Purchase
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 11 11, 2013
I was looking for a new series, and I've really enjoyed Evangeline Anderson, Tracy St John and others with similar themes, so I was hopeful for Brides of Theron.A third of the way in, I struggled to continue as I found the frequency of errors, the poor sentence structure, the characters and the story development too raw.The writing was clunky, overstated and over explained, further editing was needed - there was repition of words, errors in tense, redundant sentences and poor phrasing:'All of the attention was on her. Some just simply looked and turned away, and begin eating again. However, others openly stared and began to whisper comments to the other warriors sitting at their tables. (Begin is in the wrong tense. Two ands is poor structure. As a suggestion: "Some just simply looked and turned away to resume eating.")'"Warriors, I would like you all to meet MY WIFE as they would say on earth."' (The capitals detract from the text and the line feels over dramatic.)I found the use of capitals in speech throughout the book unnecessary and the emotions of the characters were overstated.Avery's reactions were unbelievable - she was over bold and cheeky for her circumstances, very dramatic. A heroine can be plucky, but Avery was overly and inappropriately so, and when she was not being bratty she was whiny and annoying - which combined to make a very unlikeable main character.Whilst the motivation for the nemesis was good, it was a bit over stated for my taste.For an advanced race, they had some pretty backwards ideas - making a deal to steal women, and then auctioning them off to the highest bidder. It was like the author was trying to catch a little of the Shades of Grey charity auction, but it didn't convey any seduction, it was just an ugly situation.The official, Meyer, in the introduction, lacked believable motivation or supporting story - he was too convenient and the agreement progressed too smoothly to support the story. It's hard enough to get bureaucracy to agree on a brand of coffee let alone to get a bureaucrat to agree to a major deal like trading human women for a magic stone; Meyers should have held out for more guarantees, put more of a safety net in, or a profit for his illicit agreement. If I ever get kidnapped for breeding purposes by an alien race, I hope there's a little more to it than the agreement between Meyers and these aliens. Before agreeing - beyond his authorization and with, apparently, no moral introspection - it would have been nice if he'd run a few tests, asked a few more questions, referred to a few (illicit and complicit) scientists.I know it's fiction, but I personally find that the best fiction is written from a groundwork of realistic supportive details.It was a good length novel, and the author has given it a good go, but I found it raw - under edited, and the writing needs refinement, the characters were too obvious and overstated, and I felt the author needed to read more of the genre of the same price range in order to critically compare this work to others available.