Chloe's Book Reviews {CLOSED/ HIATUS}

The Baltic Sanction Lex Jackson: Book One

Username: jdoggy

Genre: Action (spy)

Chapters: 5 chapters

Specific: N/A

Book

Cover -

I didn't find any fault with the cover. It fits the genre. 

Blurb -

I like the blurb, but I thought it was a little too short like something was missing. It needs a little spice to help make it exciting towards the end to keep the reader guessing. A hook, if you will. 

Suggestions that may help could be looking at blurbs of action books to get a similar style. Look at 'The Bourne Identity' by Robert Ludlum. 

Grammar -

You mentioned you have an editor, so besides pointing out a few inline comments, I didn't focus too much on this.

Your tenses were spot on! Just minor spelling mistakes, missing words and commas. 

Punctuation -

The same with punctuation. (See previously under Grammar).

Character Development -

(Chapter One) 

The first chapter was amazing. It was like reading something out of a 'Mission Impossible' film. It's hard to write an action scene and get it right, but you ticked all the boxes. You didn't info dump about the character's background, you issued information about the enemies and you kept your prose tight by relying on the senses and everything that was happening around him. It was exciting without going overboard. 

(Chapter Two)

We get a glimpse into Lex's perspective. I'm not really a fan of using more than one perspective in the same chapter, especially when Lex's pov is short. This can be a little jarring to some readers because as soon as we get to understand Lex's personality and such, we are then forced into another character's pov. 

I'm impressed with your use of terminology. I'm not a huge fan of action books, so I'm trying to keep up with what is happening, but everything is nicely detailed. I can sense you read books/watch films in this genre because you know your stuff. 

(Chapter Three) 

I highly suggest sticking to one major character in each chapter or using one character per chapter as you switch seven times. It's jarring and annoying when you get used to a character's pov and then it changes, and then changes again and so on. I'm not familiar with 3rd person, but I'm thinking you're writing in 3rd person limited because sometimes you switch and the character wouldn't have known about something unless they were told etc. (I hope I got that right). Perhaps 3rd person omniscient would be better because you can switch between all the characters because the narrator knows all the thoughts and feelings of said characters at the same time. So, you won't need to go back and forth all the time between scenes or even paragraphs. 

One thing I love about this chapter is the action and the slow build up toward Popov hiding in his safe house. 

(Chapter Four) 

In this chapter, we go back to Lex and Ruyan. Having said that, I'm confused with the number of characters and things going on. But I do like that the chapter has more explaining and information centring on just a few characters, rather than going back and forth between them all. 

(Chapter Five) 

It's quite usual to have a traitor on your team that ruins your whole plan. So far, this reminds me something of 'Bourne Identity.' It has the same vibes. I like your descriptions and the action scenes. It's clear you've put a lot of thought into this and that you have a good knowledge of weaponry and the action genre.

Overall Enjoyment -

I have to say, I found a lot of the chapters confusing to understand and follow. This is mainly because of the information packed into each chapter, the multiple povs, the constant pov switching and I'm not familiar with 'action' to really understand the dynamics of Russian spies and the like. 

However, your first chapter was amazing and hooked me in, but after the initial chapter, I found it hard to follow. 

Things I suggest you may need to improve are: 

-1- Re-reading your work - I know you've got an editor who is editing your work, but there's nothing to stop you from going over your work before you give it to your editor. It helps out the editor, but can also feed into your knowledge. 

There were simple mistakes like misspellings and missing words, and in some places, the layout had shifted where the sentence ended midway and started a new line. This is probably courtesy of Wattpad, but since another reader had commented on this, I would suggest fixing it for a better reading experience. 

-2- Shifting POV and having too many - Again, I'm not familiar with 3rd person, so if you prefer this, then by all means, stick with what you know. But be aware that having too many POVs in a chapter can be confusing, especially when they are short extracts of scenes. It's already hard to master using Multiple POVs in a story. Perhaps explore by removing the POV headings and try writing in 3rd person omniscient rather than having one pov per scene under the character's heading. Because, for example, under Popov's pov, you start talking about SAS and what they could see and hear, but we are in Popov's point of view, so how would he know what they can hear, see and think when it's a completely different character. 

Keep writing & I wish you all the best with your writing journey! 

Thank you for requesting this review & I hope it can help you in some way. Please check, "The Baltic Sanction Lex Jackson: Book One," if you have time.