SHS

Author: _Baby_A_A_
Reviewer: AnnikaNofal

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SYNOPSIS

SHS (Seducer, Hacker and Stealer), three mysterious girls with dark pasts have come together and started to work for the most brilliant, intelligent and dangerous criminal of all times.

Their work was pretty simple- just steal the world's precious diamonds and jewels from the world's richest men and sell them.

The trio have worked for the past nine years and all of these times, their plans were successful until they came across one single person, a cop. A very alluring, enigmatic and charismatic cop at that. So, what will happen when one of the members from the trio falls for this man?

Will she be able to keep her feelings at bay and try her best to move on? Or will she sacrifice everything that she has done since

the last nine years and put her whole organisation, including themselves, at risk for an emotion- love? Read to find out!

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Title: The title is too long and isn't catchy or appealing. If you want to draw readers in, the title should represent what the story is about in a unique way.

Cover: The cover isn't doing you any favors either. There seems to be too much going on in it, too much contrast, it's too colorful, and it just doesn't work. When it comes to covers, sometimes simple is better.

I do like how you added all three of the women on the cover, but with the way it was done, it just makes it look confusing. Also, considering that Brax is also a main character, shouldn't he be on the cover too?

Blurb: The blurb could use some work. We don't need their entire backstory on how they came to be and how successful they had been. I also find it misleading. The blurb focuses more on a singular girl and a guy she falls for, but they're all supposed to be main characters, so it doesn't necessarily work.

I recommend introducing the main characters and then bringing in whatever obstacle it is that makes this story (assuming it's not a spoiler). The goal is to keep from giving too much away and to make it flow smoothly for better readability.

Grammar: There were quite a few grammar issues throughout the story. You didn't add any dialogue tags at all, kept misspelling gray, and would sometimes leave words out altogether. Down below, I've listed some examples with advice on what you can do to improve.

"I remember honey." She murmured. After the word 'honey' there should be a comma instead of a period to represent a dialogue tag. The following word after the quotations would also need to be lower case since it's not meant to be the beginning of a new sentence. In this same paragraph, 'can' should be changed to 'could' and the entire paragraph needs to be reworded for a better flow.

Next, we have: Josephine sighed loudly and looked around her room, her very boring room. For one, the part after the comma is redundant and is also a run-on sentence. I recommend saying this instead: Josephine sighed loudly and looked around her monotonous room. Or something similar.

Another thing that happens quite frequently within the story is this: Secondary characters should never have their actions in the same paragraph as another character's dialogue. This creates confusion for readers and is a writing flaw.

The way the story is written is also confusing. Chapter one is third person limited, but chapter two is third person omniscient. It's important that you pick one of these, establishing it in chapter one, and being consistent with it through the rest of the book.

Lastly, there are tense shifts. This means that you go from writing in the past tense to writing in the present tense interchangeably throughout the book. Your characters can't be in the past and present at the same time. Make sure that you're choosing one and sticking with it.

Writing flow: The writing flow was pretty choppy. I'll list a few examples down below so you can see what I'm talking about.

Immediately, in the very first paragraph, when Josephine says "I am going in." threw me off. Most of us don't speak in such a formal manner, and it sounds kind of off here. I recommend changing it to a conjunction: 'I'm' so that it flows more nicely. This also happens consistently throughout the book.

Next, we have: She put on her black mask which was decorated with small silver stones around the eye areas. 'The eye areas' sounds a little lazy and butchers the flow. I highly recommend rewording this for better readability.

Moving on: Too much telling. She did this, looked there, walked there, waited there. Try to refrain from using words like the ones listed above. I know that sometimes they're necessary, but they shouldn't be used in nearly every paragraph.

Here, we have: Rolling her eyes, she put on her mask back and walked out of the restroom towards the ballroom. She put on her mask back? This sentence doesn't make a whole lot of sense and does nothing good for the flow of your story. Instead, I recommend changing it to: She put her mask back on and stepped out of the bathroom, returning to the ballroom.

There are multiple instances in your story, where Josephine will think something in her head and then turn around and say the exact same thing, in the exact same way, out loud. This cheapens the book and butchers the flow. If she's just going to say it out loud, there's no need for it to be in her inner monologue.

Lastly, the transition between scenes is quite choppy. You just jump from one scene to another without easing into it. This could be a result of too much telling rather than showing.

Characters: Truthfully, all the characters seemed one-dimensional. None of them contain real background stories. All we know about them is that they're assassins and that Josephine joined the organization when she was twelve. The only differences between the three girls are that they all have different colored hair and Halsa is a little shy. They all need real background stories and real flaws. Down below, I will give you a few examples on why I wasn't very fond of the characters.

The dialogue between characters is unrealistic. They talk like they're in middle school, but I know they're adults, so this throws me out of the story and may do the same for other readers.

Next, there are a lack of descriptions. This goes for the characters, scenery, literally everything. We need to be able to see everything unfolding and we need to know exactly what your characters look like apart from their hair color.

The reason I don't like Josephine much is because she seems vain and shallow. Here's why: It's mentioned that Josephine doesn't want Simon and Halsa to be together, but she doesn't explain why. There should be more information here so that readers aren't left confused. If the only reason is the age gap, that's a bit shallow. She also has no problem seducing guys and leading them into traps to steal from them. If we had more of a backstory on her, she might be redeemable, but because this is what we're left with, we have nothing else to go off of.

To strengthen your characters, I think showing them while they are partying and having a good time could be beneficial to your story. It would let readers know more about said characters and how they interact with one another.

This part had me laughing: "Oh, so our brave warrior has taken an interest to our Mr. Brax the Handsome, huh?" I'm not trying to be rude at all, but let's say that you were in Halsa's position, and you ran into a group of thugs. Could you even picture one of them saying something like this to you? It's corny and unrealistic. Also, Halsa went from not being able to speak to boys out of nervousness and that changes within the span of a few seconds. This was a perfect opportunity to give her an obstacle she needed to work through and overcome.

The kiss between Brax and Halsa was completely random. There needs to be a buildup of chemistry before something like this happens. Your readers need to root for them. Right now, I'm not liking this Brax guy. He literally just treated her like a piece of meat and threatened her for trying to defend herself. The comment he made was even sexist. It disturbs me even more that she liked it. This literally shows us that Halsa has no self-respect.

Brax—the big bad gangster, who can get any girl he wants is practically falling in love with some chick he met outside after one encounter? It's unrealistic and cheapens his worth as a bad boy.

Having three main female characters and a main male character is too much for this genre. It's confusing and very difficult to execute. All three of the girls are practically the same with very slight differences and Brax feels like a side character.

The characters need a lot of work. They need to be more rounded and they need to feel like real people. You can do this by giving them thorough back stories and real flaws and obstacles. There should also be more descriptions about the way they look and so forth.

Overall: The concept of this story is interesting; it just feels like you missed the mark. The pace was pretty fast and choppy, preventing us from getting to know the characters since things were constantly happening. The main storyline is romance, but with having this many main characters, there should be more going on where they're concerned and surrounding them. It needs to be more than just romance.

I suggest starting from scratch, writing down all your characters with their traits, appearances, hobbies, goals, and personalities. This will help you get to know your characters better and connect with them on a stronger level so that when you write, it'll feel more organic.

You should also focus on being more descriptive and try refraining from 'telling' rather than showing. If you struggle finding other words to use, something I like to do is look up synonyms for the word I'm wanting to use when I know it's a 'tell' word or if I've already used the word recently to prevent repetition.

I hope my review was helpful and I hope you don't take my feedback too harshly.