Dreamland Review Archive

Rose: The Devil's Deception (DS)

Rose: Of Devil's Deception by AWryneckWrites

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Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read the your book. Please, keep in mind that my reading of your story is by necessity a subjective opinion. Your story is beautiful and important to you more than any other story you could have been telling. How I perceived it is very much a matter of my preferences

I have read all 12 chapters of your story available. I would suggest editing just a little bit more before posting the story, to make the story read just a little bit smoother/easier. I think your story is stranding that brink between being for your eyes only and meeting another reader.

Your book is tagged as paranormal and romance, with the demonic lover romantic subgenre at the core, so I looked first and foremost at how much the story made me want the main couple to get together, how interesting/titillating the take on the married-to-devil is, and how important your main character had become to me; how much I wanted to figure out what's going to happen to them, and if I would be able to remember your story a few months from now.

I think that you chose a solid title for your story, but to me, Rose in the title is unnecessary and distracting. Devil's Rose or some other wordplay, for me, would be more enticing. I liked your blurb, but I would suggest taking out the first paragraph that talks about Rose's background. Everything I needed to know about her is already included in the second paragraph and it connects the two lovers far more succinctly in my view.

I normally wouldn't bring punctuation up, but you have a comma/sentence structure issue in the blurb that sometimes repeats in your writing, making following the text a bit difficult.

Years after obliterating his enemy and kick-starting the apocalypse, Fate sets in his path, Rose, Erzu's beautiful daughter.

The comma before Rose stops the sentence flow at an odd place. This construction is hard to read as well, because the subject of the sentence is way in the middle (Fate). In addition, Fate is really not important in the blurb. It's not a character as far as I could tell. So, making 'him' (Malic) the subject of this sentence will improve readability. (Years after Malic had obliterated his enemies, fate sets Rose, Erzu's beautiful daughter, in his path.). The odd comma placement is something I suggest you look at when editing.

In terms of the storyline and romantic build up, I felt that there was a lack of cohesion at first, then the events came together a little bit by chapter 4-5, so I feel that maybe the story starts a little too early. The first chapter told from Rose's perspective is emotional, and I like that, but it didn't click for me as something that helped me with going through the story, and neither was Malic's dialogue with Greed. I think I might be more interested in starting with her rescue, captivity and their interactions leading to her love for him. At the moment, I feel that more emotions might have went into the retell of the background than into meeting her demonic lover.

By the time I finished reading 12 chapters, I wasn't sure where the story was heading yet, so I can't really comment on the pacing much. Things did happen, but the conflict between the two lovers wasn't yet pronounced.

I think in the case of your story, I would suggest finding the heart of your story, the reason you are writing it, then align the conflict with this reason, write as far as the first major crisis/conflict scene, then trek back, reread and see how you can streamline this beginning to feel more like a build up to that conflict.

In terms of the two PoVs, both Rose and Malic have a different voice, that I could distinguish. I think that Malic's voice came through clearer, because he was more active in his chapters, while Rose was mostly remembering things and not really progressing toward any specific goal.

Good luck with developing your story and hope these notes are helpful. Overall, I felt that I might not have been the perfect match as a reviewer for your story, because I more of a fast plot gal, and your story seems to address itself to an emotional read. And with emotional read, well, you get it or not, and the mood needs to be just right for the reader to vibe with it.