THIRTEEN SLEEPING ANGELS
Author: _fiinch_
Reviewer: LadyInLostYearn
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SYNOPSIS
When Bishop Butler is accepted into a highly prestigious magical trial in Rome, wherein he will assume the title of a god and train in an ancient museum, the last thing he expects is for his cohort of 13 to drop almost immediately to 12, and then 11, and to keep falling at an alarming rate. While the nature of the trial is vicious, setting all of its contenders against one another, it is quickly obvious that these murders are not part of the game. While Bishop is fighting to win, he is also battling for his own life and working with his peers to get to the bottom of the violence -- not to mention, he is having a hard time not falling in love with each member of his dwindling group, all with their own godly powers and unfair beauty. As the thirteen months of the Trial count down, Bishop begins to realise why his sister, and so many others, have lost their lives before to this game. And that he, with the magic of death at his whims, may not even be able to save himself, let alone those that he's come to love.
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Disclaimer: While I was reading your book with my best effort to stay unbiased, I might not catch your intended style for your characters, storyline, or purposes. By the end of the day, you control its narrative. I was just passing through, exploring around, and giving a deduction.
Overall review:
This will be a short review, so I must apologise in advance. The blurb was interesting, it made me anticipate since it seemed different from books I usually found here. When I read this story later on, I wasn't disappointed. How this fucking, great concept of a story hasn't get many votes and reads yet?? Retellings of famous gods and alike are so easy to fall into banality, but this one is damn unique by far. I saw your other books, and they don't have many numbers despite you've written them for a handful of years now. Look, I'm not a fan of numbers dictating an art's worth, but it's a crime when you don't have many readers discovering this story. There isn't much to critic, except a very few grammar mistakes. Your vocab was great, you didn't write flowery, hollow words, the pacing was fine, you made the characters alive—the risk of infodumping was there, but you managed to reel it back in and made it digestible. Of course, there was a lot to take in. The system, the world-building, the many faces of characters, and especially the scenic descriptions. I didn't get why you emphasised the scenery so much, but then I assumed it was to show awe in Bishop. All I mentioned above was jam-packed. This can turn off certain readers. But the readers, who are used to reading traditionally published books, won't mind. Honestly? This deserves better than being hidden in WP. And normally, I dislike edgy, misanthropic, goth/emo MCs. Though Bishop wasn't stereotypically like that, and I stand by him.