Title: "High School Spies: Hurricane"

Author: Nick Domingo

Rating: PG-13 (violence)

# of chapters: 14 (Completed)

# of chapters I read: 3

Summary/Blurb: 2016, a time of renovation, new technology... and spies?!

The American Spy Organizaion and the International Spy Association, two of the world's top agencies, are at war due to the ISA's top secret weapon being stolen by the ASO one year ago.

Nicholas Santiago, known by his codename Agent Striker, and Agent Raven Gonzales are the top agents in their respective agencies. Both agents are equally matched in skill and strength and are unable to beat each other. But the ASO has one trick up their sleeve: turn their best agent into a living super weapon. Although this plan is deemed a success... Love has come into play in the form of Agent Raven Gonzales.

Will Nick come back? Or will his new persona lay waste to everything in his path, including his love for his rival?

Review:

Cover:

I don't like this cover because it doesn't seem to have a theme to it. The sequel (or prequel?) is practically the same thing but with a different background. It's like, are the character suspended in some kind of vortex in space? I think you were trying to go with the "sci-fi" theme here, but it's working, especially since the characters are just photoshopped onto a background.

Additionally, the author's name is a lot more legible than the title— if anything, you want the contrary. I suggest that you find a designer right away, because I can tell that this has been made by an amateur. 

Blurb:

I actually really liked this blurb, but the first line, "2016, a time of renovation, new technology...and spies?!" had me laughing, because the way its worded makes it sound like spies haven't been in existence since...ever. Even the Romans had spies.

But what you have going here sounds very interesting, it's not your typical high school romance story, because it involves agents from rival organisations, but I think the characters are teenagers....I would like to know how that high school aspect plays into the story, since it's in the title. So you might want to add that in somewhere.

I'm also really grateful that you decided to spell out the acronyms—it's really annoying when people don't do so, because you're forced to play the guessing game. Which nobody has time for.

My question here is: what's the conflict? It's unclear to me as of now. I'm unsure as to why the two agents are fighting (like, they're spies, so even if the organisations are rivals, wouldn't they both work towards the same goal?), why the ASO turned Santiago in some sort of super weapon, and how Gonzales has a role in stopping him. In essence, there needs to be some sort of main conflict, which I'm not getting here. I suggest you add that in.

"Love has come into play in the form of Agent Raven Gonzales"—I found this a little odd to read, because I thought they were meant to be rivals. So somewhere in the second paragraph, you should mention that despite the fact that their organisations pit them against one another, they have developed an unbreakable bond (or something like that). I just think the introduction of love like that is abrupt, especially since love can't really be in the "form" of something. You show love through something actions/words (unless Gonzales is meant to be the embodiment of love? Like Venus? But this is not the case and I'm rambling). 

The last comment I'll make is on the fact that Santiago has a codename, but not Raven. If she doesn't have one, I suggest to remove his codename, and just leave it to Agent Nicholas Santiago, because that extra information is irrelevant as of now.

Overall—I actually went on to the author's note, and what do I see? "When the ASO catches Nick Santiago flirting with a rival agent, they brainwash him, turning him into a cyborg known as Agent Phoenix. Now, he must find a way to stop his evil persona, or let it consume him forever." 

External conflict around which revolves the plot! Put this in your blurb after "Both agents are equally matched in skill and strength and are unable to beat each other" and get rid of the ASO having a trick up their sleeve, etc. Keep the hook questions though. 

Now, for the story! 

First Impression:

The beginning is a little generic, as well as highly improbable—the way it's written now makes it seem like he was running towards the door and suddenly, a random girl appeared in front him, causing him to crash into her. I would buy it if he was rounding the corner and he didn't see the girl turning the corner as well, but if he's literally only six inches away from the door, how does he not see her?

I liked how you introduced some action right from the first chapter, something which I would have expected considering that this is a spy novel. But the thing I found really jarring was the head-hopping. One moment we're seeing things through Nick, the next we have Raven's POV, the next we have gang members...it's a little all over place and it makes the action hard to follow.

I'm not sure about whether you were going for the third person omniscient POV, but it's hard to write effectively, because you're basically giving away all your character's emotions. So I think, if this chapter revolves mostly around Raven, that you write the entire chapter around her. (Unless the whole book will be written from Santiago's POV, which in that case, you need to rewrite this to accomodate this.) If you don't understand what I mean by head-hopping, I'll give you some examples:

1. The first part of the chapter is from Nick's POV. But then, as he's talking to the teacher, it pans to Raven and her thoughts. It's really not a necessary thing to do, you could easily show her confusion through her facial expressions, when Nick turns to look at her. The internal thoughts from her side are just telling us the way she feels.

2. When Raven runs out of the class and out into the parking lot, that's another head-hop, because it's impossible for Nick, from that height to hear the conversation between Raven and the gang members. (It's also unclear about whether the parking lot is right out the window Nick/Raven were looking out of).

I found it odd that she just ran out the classroom to confront them like that–if she's a secret agent, she wouldn't want everyone finding out by throwing karate moves all over the place. It also didn't seem like something logical for her to do. (It would be a lot more badass if the gang members broke into the school and took Raven as as hostage of some sort. It's a lot more dramatic and realistic)

Not related to the head-hop thing, it's unlikely that the teacher would discuss top-secret agent stuff right there in the classroom, in front of everyone. There could be cameras, hidden mics, students could overhear the conversation...it's imprudent and unlikely. 

The next two chapters were action-packed, and because I'm a sucker for that, I loved them. Fighting scenes are awesome when they are well-executed, and I think yours were. I didn't find it hard to follow what was happening and you didn't dwadle on pointless descriptions, which would've just slowed the story down. I think it was interesting how Raven kind of recognised Agent Striker as being Santiago, because of his golden pendants, and I guess she did because as an agent she's trained to be observant. But my question is, why would Nick be so careless like that? Even with all the bullet-proof gear on, those chains are the only thing that give him away, so it's strange that he'd put himself in danger like that.

Even if I've read only the first three chapters, I think the story is off to a good start. However, I do have two comments to make that probably relate to all the chapters in this story:

1. Pace—The fast-pace is only effective during the fighting scenes. Slow things down in the other parts, such as the beginning when Nick meets Raven. I felt like the first part of the chapter was too rushed, and I missed out on a lot of exposition because of it.

2. Head-hopping—This has happened in all three chapters, so I'm assuming that this will happen throughout the rest of the book as well. I think what you're trying to do here is to make the story read more as a movie, because in film, you can just pan towards the different characters and it's totally normal (how boring would it be to just follow one character around the whole time?). 

But in writing, it's not the same thing, in fact, it makes things confusing—it also raises the issue of telling instead of showing. Because when you move to the POV of a different character midway through a scene, instead of interpreting their emotions/actions through the eyes of another character, we are told how the person really feels, dampening the effect you're trying to make. 

At the same time, you can't just introduce five chapter breaks for each time you switch POVs. It doesn't work that way. Because you've finished writing this book, it will take a lot of effort to go back and expand on everything + write each chapter through a single POV. But in all honesty, by doing so, it will make the story read better and the characters more engaging. 

It's also a matter of analysing each current switch in the POV that you have and asking yourself: why did I switch to this POV? Is there important information that I want to show, but can't dedicate an entire chapter to it? Because it appeared to me, that a lot of the POV switching was for minor stuff, like showing thoughts, fights, etc. 

Bottom-line: think about it. This will mean that you will have to spend some more time on descriptions to lengthen your chapters, but I believe that it will make the story a lot better.

Writing Style:

Overall, the writing was simple and easy to follow. The vocabulary was as well, which sometimes led to redundancy and the frequent/incorrect use of adverbs. There was some sentence variety, often changing between short sentences for the action and mid-length sentences for the slower parts, but I can't say that I found those repetitive. There were also barely any errors related to grammar and punctuation, except for the odd slip-up, often resulting from being glossed over during the editing. These did not obstacle the flow of the story, though, so it's not something I'd be overly-concerned about.

Some work needs to be done on including some more setting/character description (mostly in making these more 'real') because, often times, the characters came across as a little robotic in their behaviour and dialogue. Even though they are spies, they are still teenagers and human beings, so make sure you convey those emotions, as to make them easier to relate to. The head-hopping was jarring, as I've said many times, so try to fix that as well.

Characters:

Nick—I can actually see Dylan O'Brien playing this character. He seems like a nice guy, but he fell a little flat for me. A lot of what he felt got conveyed through his inner thoughts (and dream), when I think it should be shown through his actions. I feel really that they're going to turn him into a cyborg soon—he's so young.

Raven—She seemed a little clueless at times, defs not as cruel as I thought she would be. I was especially disconcerted when she ran down into the parking lot to single-handedly confront a group of armed men—only Jackie Chan can do that, and in the movies.

Mrs. Peterson—A school teacher, but secretly a spy. 

Diamond rating ♢ (1—10): 7

I like the premise of this story. It's not often that you see a spy story revolving around romance, rather than defeating an evil bad guy that wants to take over the world. High School Spies: Hurricane was a quicky and easy read, there is just some work that needs to be done on filling plot holes and making the characters more life-like. 

Good luck!