Brutally Honest Reviews™

Onyx City Gods

UPDATE: The author has altered the cover since the review.

Word Count: 3014

Title: Onyx City Gods

Genre: Fantasy (More of an urban/noir fantasy)

Blurb: The job should've been simple. But for Darius, jaded hitman, murdering a fortune teller proves to be more than just a task when he discovers she's already dead. Then, her spirit rises and warns him to watch his back.

His ability to see ghosts prompts him to investigate her murder, and word travels that there's a new Medium in town. And some people don't want that. Darius soon finds his investigations interrupted by random appearances of mystical killers that need him. Question Darius wants answered: why?

~~NEW BLURB~~

In Onyx City, a town ruled by a devout crime lord, it's hard for good people to make a living. For Darius, ghost-seeing cynic, working as a hitman suits him just fine. He's not interested in killing more innocents, all that matters to him is ensuring his young neighbor doesn't get caught up in the criminal lifestyle. 

When her and her addict mother is kidnapped, he sets off on a journey through the city's seedy underbelly and its neighboring metropolis' city. Along the way, he encounters a devilish femme fatale, sadistic assassins, and an imp with a sharp tongue. What begins as a simple search mission grows into a dangerous game of survival.

Status: Ongoing

~

Starting Points: 30

Cover: The guy's face (I'm guessing Darius) is so clearly photoshopped on that it's almost hilarious. Nonetheless, I think the cover fits the tone of the title, and everything else. Word of advice: I don't think it's even necessary to have a character on the cover, since what I've read so far seems to personify the city as a character in itself. Simply adding the neon words and the grungy inner-city graffiti, litter, and vibe is all you really need to get the aura of this book across. No points lost.

Title: Really good title. Probably one of my favorites so far.

Summary: Judging from the old summary, the plot of this book has changed a fair amount, and based on the new summary, it has changed for the better. (*Future me cuts in* what I had originally read was the "new" summary, but the mum being a crackhead wasn't added until later.) This is one of the top three summaries that I've read in this review book so far.  I could name drop them but that would be mean. Nah, I'm just kidding--I don't care: Death Bound, Tapir, and now Onyx City Gods.

I don't really have a critique for it. It's concise and intriguing. I'm pumped!

Plot: It's super fucking tight, yo. I wanna get jacked at the gym because of how tight this plot is, so I can get tight abs, tights ass, and tight balls. *Gets a boner*

-I'm not even going to reiterate it for laughs because it was worded so nice in the original. Fuck yeah! *Eats a Monster Energy can* *New boner immediately eats my old boner to give birth to an Extreme Macho Boner*

-Okay, I'm about to vomit. I need to stop.

Opening thoughts:

-So, the opening is interesting enough. Our main character Darius (my nickname for him is Desiree), has just finished "a hit", it's raining, it's night, they're in the slums, and his cornrows got fucked up by the rain. That's a pretty legit set up. We know the setting, their profession, and a bit about his identity. Oh, and a bonus: the garrote is his go-to killing weapon. How hands on!