Reviews : a book where I try to review other books

24 | The Witches War

By:

First Impression
I admit the blurb got me interested. I was slightly put off by the idea of it having vampires and werewolves since twilight ruined it for me but your take on these mythical creatures seem interesting.

Pacing
I like how you jump straight to the parts of action, doing this intrigues the readers and hooks them in. But it has to be in a way that doesn't confuse them entirely or else they'll interest.

In your intro it's balanced. I like how ee are introduced with the problem or her situation immediately but leaves a little bit of mystery to it.

I do thinm you could take more time to describe locations but I'll tackle that on the descriptions category.

Other than that, each chapter ends with a good hook and exciting enough to boost the interests of the readers.

plot
I have a similar plot about the main character being the harbringer of chaos or death so I was pretty intrigued on how another would write it out.

The portrayal, I guess, is the problem for me. There were times when the dialogue failed to help the progression of the story.

My suggestion here would be to be clear on what exactly is the problem. I know that something bad will happen but what are the stakes here.

I think protraying the stakes that maybe if the werewolves get a hand of her they'll use her for their own desires. Or if the witches got her they'll help her succeed with her destiny.

Or maybe the reason why these groups of vampires found her is because they were conflicted and each believes that this destined witch could be turned to good.

Hence why they decided to find her first.

Now this could be exactly what your going for and if so, then I do suggest ti make it clearer through dialogue. Not in an expositional way but more of the characters saying in concern.

But the plot itself is interesting and with the balanced pacing it really hooked me to see what happens next.

characters
I think there is a good progression in the characters. Athena as a character is interesting and have her own character flaws. only I wished it was  shown instead of being told by Olivia.

The other characters like Hunter and noah, could use some more description as they seem to be a prominent character in the story, it wouldn't hurt to describe their features or mannersims a bit.

When describinf character features by the way, I learned that describing the more eye catching features first brings character to them.

Say, Hunter has a slight discolored or grey-red right eye or maybe Noah has a slightly crooked nose, or that Hannah wears a lot of jewelry.

I myself struggle with this but re reading the drafts and chapters help a lot.

Other than that, considering there is only 7 chapters as of now. These characters have a lot of time to grow and them as characters now is pretty good.

dialogue
I do have a few nitpicks in this category. I think some lines feel forces or too robotic. Some tags are nowhere to be seen and I get lost in trying to find out who's talking.

In chapter 5 when Hunter and the others were talking, some lines didn't have dialogue tags that would help specify who's talking, what they're doing in that scene, and how they said the line.

They were also a lot of lines that seem so sudden or out place. But these are just minor problems that editing can fix.

Overall the dialogue serves it's purpose and only needs a few minor tweaks. And to add up more detail you could add foreshadowing in their lines too.

descriptions
A few comments have already stated a few errors in tenses. Like a paragraph have both present and past tense.

Again it only needs editing and so it's not a big problem.

I do suggest to add more descriptions in surroundings. Take the time to describe the scenes where it's not exactly fast paced, or they're not exactly in action.

Like Athena's prison when she got kidnappped. The setting when she was in the house of the vampires. What catches her eye, what gets her curious.

Or maybe while trying to find a way out, she finds something strange that maybe you could use as foreshadowing.

Also the description on the necklace thing I didn't quite get. I might've over looked it though, if so I apologize.

But description on action were pretty good and you also don't have a case of repeating words or lacking words to describe scenes and movement.

Again, most of the problems here only require editing and doesn't need to be brought to the drawing board, if that makes sense.

is it compelling
I think the blurb could use more work to interest readers but the concept of a world full werewolves, vampires, and witches living in war is an interesting concept

and if you work on focusing on that as well for worldbuilding then I think it would be very compelling.

overall
I think this book was an easy read which usually means to be I wasn't bothered by any writing errors while reading and was genuinely enjoying as I read the book.

So yeah story wise, it seems to be going the right way of things and the writing really just needs editing on tenses, minor grammar stuff, and dialogue tags.

Other than that I think this book has so much potential and I'll be reading more when you update heh.

Anyway, that's all for this review, I hope it didn't come off as rude and was helpful in some way.

That is all, have a good day/night, keep on writing, and farewell!