Book: Thunder & Opal
Author: AriannaCrystal
Chapters Read: 5
Genre: Fantasy
Blurb:
Quillan is a book dealer with an edge that sees her dominating the market in her city. She can open books that have been deemed illegal by the crown. The tomes secretive and elusive--they won't open for just anyone. Not after the High King ransacked the cities for any books he could get his hands on, enclosing their kin in colossal pits, known historically as the Burials.
When a new bookseller makes a complaint to the Council of the Sun Chamber, she is arrested by the kingdom's notorious wardens. The Sorrows are bound to a curse that has taken their memories, used by the crown to bring in some of the worst criminals in Trethias, and they are tasked with bringing her to the capital city to be put on trial.
But with the High King absent from the palace these last years, the Council are vying for power, and they want Quillan to use her skills to undo the lapis that keeps the king from aging.
With a promise of freeing them from their bond to the Kingdom, the Council are pushing the Sorrows in their pursuit for power, but some of the Sorrows don't want their fate in the hands of another power broker, instead they ask Quillan for help. If she can open books, she might be able to find where their true heritage lies.
Quillan will have to navigate conspiracies and accusations from all sides to save herself from a fate worse than death. The High King could return at any moment, putting a halt to everyone's plans and subjecting the book dealer to the bond of the Sorrows herself.
Cover
I am actually kind of torn about your cover. Why?
Because it looks amazing. I adore the text, even if it is pretty simple even in its fanciness. I love that shade of blue going on there, so yeah. That is instantly drawing my eye.
But I am staring at your cover. And have been staring at your cover for a good piece of time. Still no idea what in the world I am supposed to be getting about your story from it.
It looks like someone went "let's see how many ways I can finagle with this blue substance until it looks cool" then threw text over it. There is some snow-like effects going on? Is a blue ball of gas experiencing snow?
So overall, it looks nice, but I have no idea what I'm looking at.
I also do not really love the subtitle. It just feels so... Duh? Like, yes, selling illegal stuff is dangerous. That's why it's illegal. It's like the line was trying to be dramatic just to end up funny?
I won't lie. It could be me and my kinda fuzzy brain (I am writing this section of the review past midnight while sleepy). But yes. It just reads silly, and I keep reading it in an epic movie voice to make myself chuckle. And then making up other silly ones in my head... Seriously. Say these lines in your head with an overly energetic, summer blockbuster kid's movie epic voice:
"Books have never been so dangerous"
"And you thought paper cuts were the worst damage a book could do"
So yeah. I got no other suggestions. I like the idea you're going with your subtitle. Trying to give us an idea of the book since the title doesn't really convey it (nor does the cover, really). But I think it needs to be something more epic and less... Duh.
Title
Still no idea what it has to do with the story, but this time in a better way because titles don't have to be obvious, so yay!
I dunno. I just kind of really like you didn't do something simple like "The Book Dealer" or "The Book Games" or something like that.
Instead we get "Thunder and Opal." It isn't necessarily anything special or eye grabbing, but I enjoy the contrast. You have thunder, a sound from nature that is so forceful you can feel it, and then opal, a beautiful stone. Something that can be terrifying versus something pretty to look at.
So yes. Me likey.
Blurb
Not even addressing the content of the blurb yet, but quite simply: it's long. Most of the recommendations for blurbs I see are 100-150 and sometimes 150-200. Yours is 274, 124 words more than the average suggestion (since both of them include 150). You could maybe get away with it if every detail in the blurb was necessary and exciting.
However, I'm looking at your blurb after I've read the first five chapters, and it, quite simply, doesn't feel like that.
Like, there isn't much that makes me go "eh, maybe this shouldn't be here?" but it's enough that 274 words feels too long. I feel like you try to do a bit too much world building in your blurb? That or you use more words than needed to get the same point across. An example is your first paragraph:
"Quillan is a book dealer with an edge that sees her dominating the market in her city: she can open books the High King sealed years ago during the Burials."
This doesn't give us much about the Burials, but based on context, we can assume it has to do with the High King and the books getting sealed. We don't really need to know much more than that going into the book, where the actual world building gets done.
The stuff with the Sorrows isn't bad since their origin is very important to their motivation for the part in the plot they play. However, when it comes to them being mentioned... Honestly, the part felt overly filled to me with stuff which got me confused with the plot. It seemed like she was originally employed by the council but later found out, hey, there's a plot going on by the Sorrows. I think it needs to be made clear that the Sorrows approach her first to act like she's helping the Council when she needs to be helping them. Example with some changes to make it more... flowy?
"When a new bookseller makes a complaint to the Council of the Sun Chamber, she is arrested by Sorrows, the kingdom's notorious wardens bound to a curse that has taken their memories. They have been obedient for years, but with Quillan's powers, they see a chance at freedom."
Just something to make it clear whose side she's on, or at least whose side she's most helping.
Your summary offers a lot of good stuff. The plot is interesting, the writing isn't bad (only mistake I really see is the weird second sentence fragment). I could see this summary grabbing people. I just believe that it needs to be tightened up by making it all flow together in a clearer way that better reflects the plot and maybe saving some of the motivation/world buliding for the book.
Plot/Worldbuilding
I'm going to start sectioning out this part and the next so people can see, yes, there is stuff I liked about their stuff xD
What I Liked:
I can genuinely say I love the idea for your book. It's nothing overly original -- sort of rebellious person used for the plans of people wanting to end/escape the royal power. Literally reading a book like that right now. But just like that book, you spin it in your own way that makes me legitimately intrigued to read on.
Sorrows are an awesome concept. Stealing memories from people and forcing them to work for you? Yes. I want more of this.
Books being banned are still nothing new, but the way you work it is great. The books are alive, with Quillan being the only one -- that we see -- able to "speak" with them. They each have their own personality and seem like these wise old scholars who know they're better than us. Because, come on, books are better than people any day of the week ^.^
Speaking of stories, the whole thing with the fisherman's tale is really cool. I'm guessing it ties into the opal part of your title? I don't know what it is, but it has an obvious importance I was excited to see play out.
You don't rush the world building, which is always good. I hate long lists of world building just, well, spewed at us.
What Could Be Improved:
I won't lie. A lot of this will be like "you know how I said I liked this stuff? I wasn't lying, but..."
⚫ I'm going to start off with the books. Cool concept. I get that they're locked and have personality. You don't have to go too deep into it past that. However... I never really felt like I was immersed in the scene when these things were happening. Your character is talking to books. This is part of the main selling point of your story. You did build up the books a bit, but then she goes to talking to them... And then everything is just italicized and the most "magical" aspect is that the books have to talk in difficult code.
⚫ I know I just praised you for not going too far with shoving world building at us. However, I now have to point out my biggest issue with your world building: it often time feels incomplete. I wrote this down in my chapter two notes, so it likely really hit me around the scene prior to Cohen showing up. I felt it throughout the five chapters I read, but this was where I put to words the feelings your world building gives me.
I think what happened is you wanted to build your world up quickly, because it is a fascinating world, but what ended up happening was I felt like I was shoved a lot of information without it ever properly being allowed to breathe. Instead, it was like I had to read a glossary I skipped to understand. Yes, I skipped the glossary. Why? Glossaries are there to go back to read if I need a reminder, not the source of world building.
So with world building, I strongly suggest taking a step back and giving it a bit of room to breathe.
⚫ You mention something being Cohen's story, but I had no idea what you were referring to. This is a bit of where, yes, Quillan understands and doesn't have to info dump at us, but a little bit of context building -- especially around a tale that seems like it will have so much importance later on -- would really help.
⚫ End of chapter three... I was just kinda bummed out? Cohen appears, and it would be a great time to explore what aspects of him make it clear he's a Sorrow. Maybe the atmosphere around him, the way he moves, the facial expressions, just... Something. I feel like you could have had a great deal of build up showing the feel of Sorrow before announcing a Sorrow had appeared.
And speaking of Sorrows... Are the people called Sorrows and the magic used to create them also called Sorrow? Because I'm just warning you now, that's crazy confusing for readers. You're creating a whole new world, and suddenly two connected things share the same title.
⚫ There are some other minor things, I'll admit, but I think a lot of my issues falls into something I'll address in Writing Techniques... Or characters. Torn between which because it fits both spots?
Writing Techniques
What I liked:
You have actual em-dashes. It's a minor thing, I am aware, but I had this little giddy feeling getting to see actual em-dashes on Wattpad. I'm not sure how you do it, as I -- and many others -- have to resort to the double-dash version.
You have an awareness of techniques used to create more effective writing, and in some spots, you used them very well to your advantage.
You have a lot of basic grammar techniques down.
Pretty decent flow throughout the entire narrative. Some spots may have been bumpy, but overall paragraph and sentences were controlled in a way that kept the flow going.
What Could Be Improved:
⚫ Again, doing that "this was good, but" thing. You do have a pretty good grasp of what is done to create effective writing. Fragments, hard shifts (like starting a sentence with but), paragraphing alone, etc. However, you often misused it. These elements are effective because they're done rarely, and when they are, it's to put focus on a very important point. Many times you'd try to use these techniques for sentences that didn't carry much weight. I pointed out many of these instances, but it's something to keep aware of when editing.
⚫ I won't lie, the good in this section was a little harder because there is a huge flaw in your writing that drags a lot of it down. I'm not sure if there is an exact word, so I'm just going to go with this: empty.
Your writing is painfully empty.
I am going to take you through a basic breakdown of what one of your scenes looks like:
*characters get to the place they need to be for the scene
*talking
*talking
*more talking
*even more talking
^^^ the entire time you're not fleshing out the scene or characters. Characters talk. That is basically all the scene becomes. We don't get any real sense the scene while they talk. Everything circles around the dialogue. You may have a little bit of reaction, but it's very bare bones.
I found myself very confused in scenes often because it was just character back and forth with no context. The book deal was a great example of such a scene. I got confused despite reading it twice because it was just a context-less back and forth between two characters who fully understand the world I am oblivious to. Not saying you have to info dump at us to understand. You wanted to avoid giving us the whole picture and instead gave us a speck of something we couldn't understand.
⚫ Going along with that problem and exacerbating in a very unfortunate way, your writing is very distant. This is first person, but it felt like omniscient with how distant the narrative was. Multiple times we are given direct thoughts from Quillan that could be interwoven into the narrative. Other times we are just told information with little to no personality from the narrator.
I was strongly debating between here and Characters, but I'll put it here. Quillan is the main character. It is through her eyes we see everything. Limited third and first person are fun because the narrative is greatly affected by the mind and personality of the narrator/pov character. They are the one who are supposed to feel the most real and prevent to us.
Quillan outright vanished in chapter five. I went almost an entire half of the chapter there with the Sorrows talking to each other, and I forgot it was first person because Quillan just wasn't present in the scene at all. There is a distance from Quillan that when paired with the dialogue + bare bone reaction format you have of writing the narrative that just makes an otherwise intriguing plot just... empty. Completely empty.
Characters
This section is a bit difficult because of what I mentioned before. All we got from characters was when they got a chance to talk. I have beat on Quillan's lack of personality showing through the narrative, so I'll leave that alone.
But it extends to just being telly about characters as well. *points at Eira* That chick? That apparent good friend of Quillan's? Appeared out of nowhere in the scene as an offhand mention. I can barely even remember any scenes where she spoke, and usually just to give information to Quillan.
Everyone prior to Cohen just feels... There. Quillan admittedly gets some as the main character. She is very determined, dedicated, and seems quite... *doesn't have a d-word for intelligence* Darn. She's intelligent xD She has some basic traits to her, but they never really feel fleshed out because of the distance. Still better than Eira and the writer lady though.
The Sorrows honestly have the most character to them. I think it's because you get to play off their obvious goal and their difficulties. I honestly enjoyed the chapter five scene of them talking a lot because their personalities play well off each other, but then I remembered Quillan was there and her lacking of existence and it made me enjoy the scene far less. Maybe you just give them more time because you want to build our support for them.
I'm overall not sure, but from the five chapters I read... Almost everyone needs work because they're the barest boned of characters who just... are there. It's not that they have bad bones to them, but they need more than that for them to be important enough to earn a spot on the page.
Oh. The books. Forgot about the books. They're quite the joy, even if sometimes I feel like you're confusing me way too much with them. That may be a side effect of it being purely dialogue based though when you have characters who speak in riddles. May help to see Quillan thinking through what they're saying.
Overall
One of the biggest compliments I can give you is I enjoyed your work enough I nearly broke my rule about not commenting except for edits. There were multiple times where I almost naturally commented just because I was enjoying the dialogue or the way something was written. Usually when I read for reviews, I have so much going through my head I don't have enough space to think about what I want to comment, rather than what I need to comment. So congrats, I enjoyed your story enough that I almost naturally commented.
Your main issues have to do with having something very bare bones, which may just be the fact it's a first/early draft. You said you knew there were some voice issues, and I hope I could help you realize just how negatively it impacts your writing so you can work at it in your next version.
Best advice over all I can give is to just remember who you're telling the story through. When Quillan gets more life to her, I think it'll trickle through to more life in the narrative, and from there more life in the overall story. If your core of the narrative -- your narrator/PoV character -- doesn't get to be the one telling the story where she is supposed to, things won't connect.
But overall, I can see why so many people have read it for Exchange. It's enjoyable, it has a very fun premise. Once it can get the distance/narrative issues under control, I could see this being a very amazing book.
Also, as my first premium member, I would love to hear your thoughts on the review overall. I'm sorry it took so long, but I really hope it was worth it. If there is anything you think I could improve for future premium members, please let me know!
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Next up: Redemption by Rosephilips