The Gauntlet: Results and Reviews

The Daughters of Fate by MathiasCavanaugh

What is the actual story? The twins (judging by the title I'm gonna go with yes) or Hedric and the Tear? If it's the twins, you don't need all the stuff about Hedric. That's all distracting background stuff and not actually necessary to the buildup to the inciting incedent. You could really use a clearer inciting incident/main conflict, by the way. It'll help create tension. From the blurb I'm not really sure what kicks the story into motion. The war? The thing that shattered them?

What is the war being fought over? Fate? Freedom from fate? Where exactly is the threat coming from? The gods? The people? We've got a clearer picture of what Hedric is after than what the twins are fighting over.

I would suggest focusing much more on the girls. There is little to no individual character description, other than from the front of the book. Is one a good girl and the other a rebel? Dunno, it's not mentioned. Also, I don't know what 'shattered' is referring to. Did they lose their parents? Are they refugees from the fighting? What happened? It's alright to go into a tad more detail. Not a TON, but sketch out what drives them, give the reader someone to sympathize and connect with, then launch into the real crux of the story. What makes them fight on opposite sides? (Inciting incident should go in this pile, I think.) Who are they fighting? What is standing in their way? (Mention a few obstacles, provide a hint at the main conflict.) What do they actually stand to lose? Who are they fighting for? (Raise the stakes.) These are just guiding questions, you certainly don't have to go overboard answering them, and you've already got some of the necessary info (the fact that they're twins, they're fighting on opposite sides, that one embraces the gods and the other doesn't, that there's a war, that the gods and Fates are involved.)

Total: 3/10 (I've put the book back on the shelf.)

Reader 2:

Cover: 1.5/4 Let's start with the positives:

The graphic of the two sisters is nice and crisp. The title font is quite well chosen, although makes me think the story is set in Egypt, or an Egypt-esque world.

Unfortunately, this is the limit of what's good about it.

This is very very busy. The blue splash really detracts from the interesting factor - the sisters - and it is quite tacky and a bit forced. I think it is because it looks blurred, almost like a photo that was blown up past its resolution.

The bottom part, with the sticker and the tagline is a bit distracting. It takes up a lot of space for little return. My issue with it is mainly the colour choices - between the yellow and the muted green sticker the whole cover looks a bit dated.

Title: 1/2 A little generic, but nothing really wrong with it. It works well with the blurb.

Blurb: 2/4  I am struggling a little with this one. There is so much information here that is not explained, and so many story plots all at once. It is clear you have done your world building, and are showing us you have, but the world is so overpowering, I don't know where to look.

Here are some of my questions:

What is the Tear of Earoni? Is it an actual tear? A device of some sort?

Who are the Blood Lords? Is the one you say is ("the last of the Blood Lords") the last because he is the latest, or because he is actually the last in his line? Is that Lord Hedric? Why is his breath undying? It is a nice sentence, but would make more sense if you specified earlier that he is immortal.

Are the Fates actual physical being? Or are you speaking metaphorically?

What I would suggest is to focus more on the sisters - it is their story, after all. All the back story is nice to know, but would work better as a backdrop rather than in the forefront. As it is, they seem more an after-thought, like you have created a world you liked and had to make up some characters in order to be able to write a book about it. And voila, here came the sisters.

It is a shame, because when you actually get to the sisters, this seems like a really interesting story. But by then I think you'll have lost potential readers, confusing them with all the info at the top. 

Total: 4.5 (I've put the book back on the shelf)

Reader 3:

Cover: .5/4 For me, this is an ugly, off-putting cover with a bad graphic in the centre, odd blends, unappealing colours, and a text excerpt with uneven spacing between the letters. Nothing about it entices me to pick it up or find out more about the story. In fact, it rather reminds me of the covers of old technical handbooks, or small press non-fiction 'how to' books, like "how to regrout your bathtub with simple, everyday tools".

The phrasing, "one light and one dark" makes me think one of the sisters is Caucasian and the other African, or something along those lines. Also, you don't need the "by" on the cover, as that sounds either like school, or something you'd see in an advert /press release for a book, and not on the book jacket itself.

Title: .5/2 Generic as they come. No oomph, no atmosphere, nothing that indicates mystery, intrigue or adventure. As blah as the cover.

Blurb: 1.5/4

The last line had me laughing. "Daughters of Fate Book 1 begins an original epic fantasy adventure from the mind of Mathias Cavanaugh."

Firstly, this story doesn't sound original in any way, and 'from the mind of' heavily reminds me of the advertising slogan "From the Mind of Minolta". Is Mathias a camera? Or is he trying to brand himself as a piece of tech? Or, maybe a wizard with mind-magic abilities? In any case, it sounds rather over-done and silly.

As far as the story part of the blurb goes, I can't really make heads or tails of all of the fantasy mumbo-jumbo in the first two paragraphs. Seems a hodge-podge of odd names and Lords and rebellions and magic dippy-do and elves and yadah yadah yadah that's so typical for epic fantasy. Only when all the pathos leaves in the third paragraph does an actual story start to slither out, and the fourth paragraph when Sheala and Cassandra are introduced is actually the only paragraph in the entire blurb to contain any real substance or clarity about what's the story is really about. 

That part doesn't sound half bad.

On the brighter side, there are hardly any grammar errors in here and only a few clumsily phrased parts. So, there's that!

Total: 2.5 (I've put the book back on the shelf)