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Book Title: Riverhouse Royalty

Book Genre: Fantasy

Date of Review: March 12, 2016

Chapter(s) Reviewed: 0 & 1

Approximate Chapter Length: 1000 & 1800

Content Flags: None

Summary (copied from book description)

It was the Summer before Alina Bellamy's last year of high school, and she knew that-as someone who had lived forever in the small town of Lafantome-it was her last chance to become someone notable. Despite her excellent grades and many extracurriculars, it was not guaranteed that her streak of success would follow her to college. Even if it did, just being successful wasn't enough.

On a typical morning of waiting tables at the local Italian restaurant, her boss, Mr. Capello, cooked up a pot of trouble for her. As a family friend of military school student Brandon Lucie, Mr. Capello suggested that the teen ask his most hard-working employee for help: Alina. With money-enough money to cover the costs of entering the annual Riverhouse Contest-offered as an incentive, Alina set aside their rocky past and rushed to accept the Lucie family's proposal. She and her best friends may have been hesitant about working together on their Riverhouse Contest entry with their new teammates Brendon and Coen Lucie, but things went unexpectantly well... Until they didn't.

However, looking back into the past, Alina would not change a thing.

Review

Riverhouse Royalty begins with a prologue set 50 years after the main events of the story. The narrator, Alina, attends a memorial service for an old friend. It is the first time she and several old friends have been together in some time.

Skip back 50 years to the beginning of the first chapter and the reader finds Alina handing out free samples of parfait at a festival. She catches sight of Brendon Lucie, someone with whom she clearly shares an awkward history, though judging from the way she catalogues his appearance she hasn't seen him in a while. After an awkward encounter in which she gives him two free samples of parfait, Alina retreats into the restaurant where she works with her best friend to discuss Brendon's sudden reappearance. While inside, she finds a note from her boss warning her to stay safe tonight, locked inside the restaurant, and then a mysterious silhouette appears against the glass of the front doors.

There are a few typos and grammatical mistakes, but overall the writing in this story is clear and smooth. While the author could stand to slip in a few more sensory and setting details to immerse the reader, what's there already is a great start.

The plot and pacing of this story is something of a mystery at present. There's almost no urgency to the story up until the last couple of paragraphs of Chapter 1, and after the pace and content of the story leading up to this point, the sudden hint at danger feels a bit contrived and unrelated. There is no foreshadowing. Alina finds her boss' note of warning, then the girls rush to lock the doors and find a large silhouette against the glass and heavy breathing coming from the other side.

So far, the characterization in the story is not bad, but it also doesn't stand out particularly. I think part of the difficulty here lies in the jump from Alina and Brendon presumably in their 60s to Alina and Brendon as teens. Even within the first chapter, Alina describes memories of Brendon from middle school, further muddying the current characterization of these two. Further in the story this will probably begin to clarify.

Based on the author's writing style, Riverhouse Royalty has a lot of potential, but it's difficult to judge from what has been written so far because the plot feels somewhat erratic and the story is split between different eras of the characters' lives. I am hopeful that some of these things will begin to clear up as the story progresses, but others may need to be addressed in revisions.