By pintobeth

MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD: SO TO ANYONE BESIDES THE AUTHOR READING THIS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

HOOK:

So, the first thing I will mention is just how long the summary was before I started reading. I find it very creative that it took a first person approach, but coming in at 247 words, it's just very difficult to read at a glance. Typically, a summary should do a several things in as few words as possible: Introduce the main character, the setting, the character's goal(s), the conflict, and the stakes. (Although, there may be a few more I have missed here. And of course, no summary need follow any cookie cutter guidelines.) Perhaps, the biggest issue here, is the amount of backstory that's being squeezed in. A lot of this can be featured in the novel—much to the benefit of the summary—because in the end, it will end up sound less like an infodump (which it does now) and more like something meant to hook the reader.

But of course, that is just the summary.

The actual story starts on a prologue, which, for a prologue, does its job nicely. It starts on a dialogue line in the vein of, "Hey, are you there?" Which has, beyond the shadow of a doubt, been done before—but it does what it needs to do. Give the reader something to grab onto—an unanswered question.

Moving onto chapter one—the real hook, perhaps—things take an explosive turn when we're introduced to Ashlyn. We're in close pursuit of a demon called Derru, and suffice to say, it's the fun beginning of a chase—until I got to the end of the chapter, and the chase ends abruptly with the demon's anticlimactic catch. A slight disappointment, given all the tension built up at the beginning—but we are quickly introduced to a new character, Sage, which as an effect certainly renews my interest.

However, so far as hooks go, these two segments do their job quite well. The prologue establishes a quick and dirty background and hints at what the situation might be, and the first chapter establishes the setting as well as introducing our main lead, Ashlyn.

GENERAL GRAMMAR:

This section, in addition to grammar, will actually detail narration as well.

Some awkward and "go figure" phrases are scattered about, such as redundancies like:

"The naeban is safe enough, what with the hardened scale plating protecting his vital organs. I, however, can't be hit by a car without running the risk of death."

In contrast to an earlier line:

"...so I need to concentrate on not getting run over."

If someone is human (which I believe our protagonist was from the start), and gets hit by a car, they will most likely suffer serious injury, so it doesn't necessarily need to explicitly stated, especially when something in the same vein is already said earlier. As a suggestion:

Thankfully though, the naeban is safe enough, what with the hardened scale plating protecting his vital organs." This would flow in from the previous sentence, contrasting them a bit.

However, other than that, everything is mostly perfect, and your grasp of punctuation is solid. While I won't mention anything specifically, when in edits, make sure to comb through the piece for any unneeded adverbs and 'exotic' dialogue tags that may draw attention to themselves.

CHARACTERS:

To go onto more meaningful critiques, I have read up to chapter 4 within the text.

Suffice to say, no one really stands out besides the main character up until this point. Quite a few characters are introduced in the span of very few words, which, to me, as a reader, makes a bit difficult to really connect in the end. We meet Ashlyn, right at the start, in a rather explosive way; she's doing her job, which is nice to see. We can see her doing the thing she does best. We then meet Sage—but this character gets very little screen time. Then Willow, but it's all the same, all the way up until Gran.

Additionally, going back to an earlier point, the story is beginning to doze out a bit. A lot of these chapters are being used exclusively to introduce characters and give backstory, such as in the chapter where Ashlyn's boyfriend is introduced.

For myself, all this jumping around makes it incredibly hard to become attached to any one character. While the POV character is characterized well enough, the secondary characters—at least in the beginning—are lacking in substance.

PLOT:

So far as the plot goes, it's relatively interesting, what with a huge mix of mythologies including harpies, demons, and what not.

While commenting on the plot as a whole just from several chapters will be impossible, it is possible to give a first impression. As stated earlier, it starts with a relative bang—but then slows down for a bit as we are introduced, if not a bit haphazardly, to some character's that may or may not be key.

Reading forward, we are introduced to Zach, as well as some of the intricacies of the TREE (The Recovery and Existence Experts) organization.

For me, it's all fair and well to have the plot go at a slow pace. However, to me, it lacks a bit of focus, and I reiterate the point on how lots of characters were introduced in a very short amount of time.

So reading up until eight, we are introduced to yet, even more characters. Some of which seem to be more important to the story. Such as Zach, who (spoiler ahead) becomes Ashlyn's new in the 'demon department' of TREE in place of Sage.

So far, it is a slow read, despite the chapters being incredibly short (2-3 mins in length, for the most part). The author starts off with a bang, but the pace does doze out a bit as the reader is fed information on the dynamics of the world (particularly in chapter eight). While, as a reader, I am alright with this, I felt as though a lot of this could have been done while progressing the plot at a faster pace. I would have expected, by now, to have at least heard the name 'satan' as per the summary's promise. So, to see where things lead, I made an attempt to read up until that inciting incident:

And even up to chapter 15, there is still no sign of this figure within the novel. At this point, and again, despite the short chapter length, I would describe the pace as a bit too sluggish. A lot of things happen (spoilers ahead). We see Zach on his first job. Ashlyn gets cheated on. She vents her woes with Gran. It's all a lot of sub plot so far, and there is, sadly, for me, not really enough focus for me to continue.

However, given the fact that the chapters are 'very' short, I do persevere for one more chapter, and finally, we get a hint at the main plot in sixteen. Apparently, a 'lord of the under' figure is looking for a new assistant. Finally, I can see some relation between the summary and main plot.

But it just took way too long. And even here, in this chapter, we have yet to meet satan.

So, to close. The plot has the strength of starting off with a bit of a bang. Which is nice, but, when it all fizzles out in the end, it kinda just bores me a little bit, despite the interesting dynamics of the world.

OVERALL:

So, overall, is it worth taking a look at?

Certainly. Despite the constant reiterations that the book is 'slow', there's still a lot of cool stuff going on between chapters one and fifteen. It's a shame that I did not get to meet satan, but I am not a patient reader, and even when met with the promise that I might so soon, I decided to quit.

However, if you have a little more patience than my cynical old self, I believe you will definitely find something here if urban fantasy is your game. The atmosphere is nice, the chapters are bite sized, so that 'just one more chapter' syndrome will definitely be easy to succumb to.

Ashlyn is also, an interesting and relatable character. Given I have 'spoiled' the story just a little bit, you can inference what might happen to her in the beginning. However, again, a lot of character's are introduced and are abruptly thrown into the sideline, so as a parting criticism, I would look into either featuring them a bit more, or perhaps even eliminating some of them in favor of moving the plot at a brisker pace. (Perhaps start with Zach immediately becoming Ash's new partner.)

So, given I will not give a star rating for these 'critique oriented' reviews. I'll just say this. Check it out; it's pretty god damn good.