Book: Damn Your Lies
Author: _BLACKSPADESZ
Reviewer: oraclesighter
Chapters read: 12 including prologue

The cover and banners are extremely attractive. I have to give you and your designer credit for going all out on making the visuals presentable and striking. The use of symbols on the chapter titles, the clean and refined art along with the font and color scheme, they tie well in together and make for a hooking book flawlessly—it’s so important to have a good book cover as a first impression because that is the first thing readers notice and will determine whether they choose to give the blurb, or straight up go into the chapters, for a read.

The blurb is compelling, captivating. I manage to capture its general essence and what type of concept to expect before reading, mainly royalty themes and a possible revenge. I am intrigued on how Regina will go from a “quiet mouse” to a powerful force not to be reckoned with, not to mention how intriguing the question of how her supposed husband, the Emperor Rex, becomes an opponent to her. It’s a striking dynamic that promises complex events to unfold. 
The keywords betrayal and disloyalty also hint on what may come and what to expect from the story, and I am specifically intrigued at the mention of “external forces”. 

However I’d suggest making the stakes more clear. 

What may Regina or Rex lose (or gain) from this relationship and the problem between them? What makes their dilemma so urgent? Why is it so important for Regina and how does it impact her? 

What is SPECIFICALLY at stake?

Specifying the nature of the betrayal or how it impacts or affects the protagonist, or the other characters, could also make for a strong hook for the blurb. Certainly, I understand you may want to keep this more secret so as to not spoil the entire story, but keeping your blurb too secret may blind the reader from knowing what they’re actually getting into. 

One thing I’ve noticed from whenever I’ve read blurbs is when the author provides too little information about the plot or the stakes, it weakens the hook and makes me lose interest, and probably a handful of other readers too. As I said, specifying the stakes would strengthen your blurb a lot. 

The prologue manages to give more insight to the story and our protagonist Reina, showing how she had a past life before becoming Regina. I found the dynamic of fate interfering with Reina’s life extremely interesting, how each time she was about to accomplish a goal something unfortunate occurred in return, hindering her from accomplishing it. It made me wonder whether it would be a recurring pattern which would follow her onto her next life and perhaps also interfere with her becoming a powerful title, or interfering with the dilemmas she would face with her husband and the “external forces outnumbering” them, as mentioned in the blurb. 

I also like the concept of having to complete side quests, or tasks, to actually survive as “Regina”. It’s a unique way to create a twist in this type of story. I’ve certainly seen other stories on Wattpad where the protagonist is reincarnated into a character in a fairytale or novel, but the system you’ve built where the character can’t exactly change the fates of the characters however still manage to kind of dodge that fate for a moment 

Although she can’t change the fact that she’ll definitely die at the end, she can change the way she behaves and acts before that time comes, stunning the entire kingdom in a way that makes you want to keep reading to see what else she’ll do, and keeping in mind what was mentioned in the blurb, to see how she flourishes and takes the power that Regina never could.

It’s interesting to see Reina’s theories and how she catches up on the possible truth on how the “soul switch” worked out. It was a hooking monologue that even made me reflect on the questions she was making, and which certainly helped connect the dots to a lot of things within the plot. 

The mechanics are extraordinarily well used in this story.

I love how in the first chapter, you shift from Reina’s name being called wildly to Regina’s name being mentioned gently. It was a smooth, subtle shift, and it was the perfect way to start the story.

The character descriptions, voice, and descriptions of their clothes combined with Reina’s confusion makes for a perfectly believable and realistic scene. The incorporation of humor is also well written here, I instantly get the vibe of who Reina is and who I’m going to be reading about in the next few chapters. 

However I’d suggest that when describing how a character's dialogues sound, you should also incorporate “show don’t tell” into it. 

Instead of writing ("can you just tell me where in the world I am?" I asked, irritated.) you can SHOW how she was irritated instead of straight up saying it. How do people sound when they’re irritated? There is a vast list of descriptors and keywords you can use to show how someone said something while irritated. It doesn’t have to be a long sentence, nor anything complicated. But make the description more interesting and fun to read, let the readers imagine and assume for themselves what the character is feeling. 

Here are some examples: 

I asked with an edge to my voice. - (Sound descriptor)
I asked with clenched teeth (or “I asked, clenching my teeth”). - (facial expression/action descriptor)
I asked, my patience wearing thin. - (Feeling/thought descriptor)
I asked, my eyebrows furrowing. - (Facial expression/action descriptor)

The point is to use your creativity and come up with different ways to describe an emotion or how a character did something instead of plainly saying it. It enhances your writing and makes it way more entertaining for the reader to be able to picture or hear how your character said or did something according to your creative description.

Try not to repeat certain words or phrases often, such as the filler word “rather”, as in  “it was rather cold”, in the same paragraph. Use the same filler words sparingly, once you’ve already used the word “rather” to describe something, use a synonym if you find yourself wanting to use that word again. This also applies to other words, try not to repeat the same words in a short amount of text because the reader notices. 

If you’re writing a story, you’re given a chance to use all the possible synonyms and words to create an engaging and refreshing story. It’s not the same case as your writing, but I want to give you this heads up so you can know, as a writer, to not make a mistake like this in the future: one time I found myself reading a story where the author would use the exact same idiom to express an idea, it went around the lines of “I knew this place like the back of my hand” this idiom was repeated so many times for different topics, not to mention it was written in dual-pov, so I couldn’t stop focusing on the fact that why couldn’t she have a synonym to describe her idea?

As I said before, in your case it wasn’t that distracting, in fact I’d say it’s something so small it doesn’t matter. But keeping this point in mind will certainly make your writing more dynamic and flexible, and possibly save you from limiting yourself to using only one idiom in the future. 

Another thing I’d like to mention now that we’re at it, the sentence “The woman shouted, her eyes widening in surprise” has been written using the show don’t tell technique. BUT, if you’re using this technique correctly, you would not have to mention that the character widened her eyes “in surprise”. The reader already understands that she’s surprised by the shouting and wide eyes. Omit writing that someone did something “in surprise,” or “in” any other emotion when writing. 

It’s obvious enough, and if it’s not obvious enough then you have to rewrite that sentence.

It’s best to write something along the lines of: “The woman shouted, her eyes wide.” 

Other than that, you’ve got an entertaining voice and writing style. It’s fun to read the story because of the way you’ve expressed the characters’ thoughts and actions.

Your descriptions of things such as characters, what they wear, their gestures - as well as surroundings - are clear and vivid to imagine. It’s difficult to spot flaws in your work since it’s already so well done. 

The only things I recommend in your writing is to reinforce “show don’t tell” and put more faith in the reader, to trust that they understand what the characters are feeling solely based on their actions and thoughts — that you don’t need to clarify how someone did something. 

Moving onto the hook, the prologue is already filled with intriguing and compelling content that would make a reader want to continue reading further. As well as the oncoming chapters, especially the first one, which is a good sign you’re on the right path. You’ve chosen the perfect scene to start the book with, moving with action and chaos as soon as we get into the story. The way you’ve written it is well executed, and I can instantly get a vibe of who the character is just based on a few sentences of inner monologue she has. Both the moment and character are captivating, and they create a reason to stay and keep reading.

I’ve also noticed how you end each chapter with a cliffhanger, which is very clever. It’ll definitely help to hook readers in to find out what happens next, including me. 

Overall, the story is a fresh, compelling, and engaging story to read. I genuinely had a lot of fun reading it and seeing what chaos Reina would cause as Regina. I think the story is written well, there aren’t many points to improve on in story structure, characters, or writing style, other than the things I’ve mentioned. I hope this review was helpful, thank you for sharing your story. 

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