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Book Title: Book of Mystics

Book Genre: Fantasy

Date of Review: March 4, 2016

Chapter(s) Reviewed: Prologue & Chapter 1

Approximate Chapter Length: 800 & 3000

Content Flags: None

Summary (copied from book description)

The book of mystics had been an elusive magical artifact just as it was stolen nearly a century ago.

The proceras want it, the platitus after it and the asambla need it. This three groups all after the book of mystics.

Follow Zilianna, who is a part of the Asambla, called the 'crystal ice weaver' by most, with a past that is about as blank as a piece of paper to most and that most of them were coming back to haunt her.

Just as she is sent after the book of mystics as it has secrets that may shatter the world of magic and both the human world once more.

Review

Book of Mystics starts off with a prologue in which a thief steals a mysterious book from a library, then moves into chapter one to introduce us to our main character, Zilianna. Zilianna attends a short meeting of her kind. Growing concerns over attacks by a rival group, the platitus, are addressed at the meeting, and then Zilianna is assigned a partner to help her bring in new recruits. On her way home she is attacked, but she manages to fight off the attacker with her ice magic.

This was a difficult read. The writing style is very awkward with grammatical errors abounding. I found that it was challenging to get past the writing style to think critically about other elements of the story. My initial gut reaction as a reader is that I don't want to read it because the sentence structure is too unclear. Here are some examples:

The screen showed separately as it was difficulty drastic, Zilianna looked at the statistics which was both different. She could see the sharp difference between the two between it. (Chapter 1)

He caught onto her just as Zilianna took it out, making a swift move as she kick his arm, both already bleeding from her attack and landed upon his shoulder and used it as a stepping stone before jumping. (Chapter 1)

The main thing that can be said for this book is that it has an immediate sense of conflict. Two groups at odds, attacks on the main character's group increasing, a battle in the first chapter that introduces the magic; these are all good things.

However, from a characterization standpoint I walked away with little more than the idea that Zilianna is a fighter and one of the other characters, Raphael, distinctly does not like her. The writing style made it very difficult to connect to the characters and story, so it's entirely possible that I've missed some details, but all in all I found the characterization and setting details to be lacking.

This draft is painfully rough and will need a great deal of revising to become a compelling read. I have faith that the author is fully capable of buckling down and working at her writing style until it shines, though.