The Alien Review Shop

A Dragon in Sheep's Clothing

Title: A Dragon in Sheep's Clothing

Author: Lizz_the_wordsmith 

Reviewer: 

Cover

I like the concept of your cover. The black dragon design is cool, but the text is unprofessional and the faded eye in the middle of it is strange. If I were you I would just stick with the simple black dragon design and change the text.

Blurb/Premise/Hook

Your blurb reads more like a summary than a blurb. Keep in mind that blurbs are typically 150 words or less in length with a focus on your MC, premise, and hook. You don't have to follow these rules (I don't because when I did I came up with something horribly boring) but I would recommend shortening what you have.

Arden certainly has an interesting backstory, however. I like the line "having her youth stripped away from her so early." This is a theme I explore in my work too, and I'm curious to see how you'll tackle it with regards to Arden.

Your plot sounds fascinating. Arden works for the White Cartel after trapped by a childhood steeped in crime. She pursues a mission in a town called Ridgewood but there is little detail in the blurb about what that mission is. That's fine, but I would recommend cutting down on blurb wordcount by just focusing on the parts that concern the plot. The second half talks about really vague ideas like "secrets that unlock a past in her that have been buried deep down for so long." That's a character study that you can tell us about later. I would take this last part out and solely focus on the White Cartel and what her mission is and what the stakes are in your blurb. We haven't known her long enough to really care about her secrets yet. But once we get into the story we will down the line.

Conflict

Arden v White Cartel

Arden v Ridgewood

Character Analysis

Arden has some neat bits of characterization. She's intuitive and has a unique set of skills, like driving and racing. She also handles pain really well (she didn't even want to go to the hospital in chapter two after a car accident. Which as an American, I can understand that. I'd try to stick it out too).

The author puts a lot of thought into the backstory of side characters. Andre being a mechanic. Tyler and his hatred for English Literature. This random and small help the reader remember the characters separately.

However, when you describe these characters, be careful of "telling" sections that pull the reader out of the story. In chapter three we meet Tyler while Arden is recovering in the hospital. We're invested in seeing how Arden is doing, getting more information on what happened, and we want to know what's next. That flow is broken by three paragraphs that tell us what Tyler is like. "I had come to know that Tyler had a personal vendetta against his English Literature..." an interesting bit of information, but it has nothing to do with what's currently happening in the story. This was a trend found in a lot of your character introductions. This goes along with my biggest suggestion for macro edits: make sure every word you put in your story progresses the plot.

Opening Chapters

So my biggest suggestion is to make sure everything you write progresses your plot. Some authors are pantsers, some are plotters (I'm the second one). I don't think you're using an outline here, I might be wrong. But I would suggest implementing one to make sure that everything that happens pursues your story. The prologue talks about dragons. The first chapter follows Arden through her first day of senior year at her school in Ridgewood. Without any information about the Mafia or why she is there, and the disconnect between the dragon info-dump in the prologue, this opening is hard to connect with. It's a little disinteresting.