Publishers: Kindle Amazon
Format: E-book
REVIEW REQUESTED
Epeolatry London Rating: **
Her's Rating: *
Meandering
Improvements Needed
No Tension
When a book is read it gives us a theatre ticket, but rather than it be public, it is for your mind only. You cast the characters based on filling in the holes in between descriptions, you set the scene through weaving past experiences with what you read and the glean undercurrents through subtext. It is a partnership between you, the reader, and the writer of the words you read. Some partnerships are more work than others. Incrusted is one of them.
Epeolatry London Review
The writing style of Annora Wilson seems to favour the use of short paragraphs, over-describing and a high amount of dialogue; which does not denote a poor style of writing. However, it did stunt the flow of the story in areas. There is a spreading out of background which does boasts the reader's curiosity and keep them reading which is a skill that some new writer's find difficult to incorporate into their story. The intrigue is there; it is just not always presented in well.
There is an over use of connective words that interrupted the flow, which is counterproductive to what these words are supposed to do. Rather than giving vital information for the reader, it is instead overloading the reader with it. How am I, as a reader, supposed to be able to discern what is important and what is useless. Spread it out! This is a common reason for people to skip a few sections (or even chapters) ahead and also one of the reasons why I struggled to read the whole story!
The amount of information that Annora wants the reader to know for that very moment results in the story struggling to with create and maintain tension. Tension is an important component within the composition of a work through creating emotional reactions within the reader. It was not just the overuse of connective words, through allowing unimportant information to reach the page, it was also through the long lengths of sentences. Sentence length should reflect the mood of the action. Moments of action and danger did not feature shorter quick-fire sentences, instead, the abundance of information showed a character in control of the situation, therefore reducing the danger aspect to the scene.
Not everyone has the job of an editor but anyone who reads an average amount can easily slip into that role and this can interrupt their reading 'trance'. Lack of clarity between text and dialogue, the maintaining of one tense, and the confusion caused by adjectives, such as 'colourless Autumn leaves', are other areas that made the partnership between me, the reader, and Wilson, the writer, difficult in our creation of my own personal mind theatre.
Her's Review
Annora Wilson's Incrusted came to me through an email request, and I was immediately intrigued by the variety of possibilities of what supernatural creature this heroine could be. Yet, it became clear that this story would be hard work. I lost curiosity about the characters and their relationship through a variety of ways. There was no build-up to their romance so it seemed as though it was a component of the work story that was not important. If it isn't important then I shouldn't care about it, right? The heroine came across quite early as pitiful and on a personal note I find it a quality that is unlikeable unless it is made much more submissive to a more dominant personality trait. Because of this I could not bond with her, and this effected my level of caring about her journey and her relationship with the male lead of the story.
When this book hit the cliche highway it was clear that more experience is needed in order to do the justice that this story needs. It saw a kind young girl who is so extraordinary that everyone around her sees it but her lack of self-worth makes her blind to it. A powerful man pursues her and just as their relationship settles a situation happens that causes her to leave him without TALKING it out. Everything is cleared up and they live HEA. There are other things that happen alongside this but this is the gist of it. If this plot structure is going to be followed then it needs to have something unique which dominates much of the story, therefore giving the illusion of it being a fresh new story; not a re-do.
Having lost curiosity about the heroine and her path, not at all invested in her relationship and its success, and put of by the descriptions I bowed out of considering reading the rest of the series when the books are released. That I find such a shame because the possibility of reading about a 'reverse harem' was exciting. Yet, it is clear that this is a passionate writer, with a great love for her characters, but focus on further developing their writing style and more variety in their reading will expand their repertoire of skills; raising the level of this work higher.
Improvements
The use of more internal monologue, subtext and allowance for the reader's imagination would see Wilson's writing style turning out work of fast-paced reading and will help in the creation and maintenance of tension by freeing up more space.
Difficulties with reducing sentence length can be counteracted with treating a paragraph as one sentence. Along with allowing you to fit everything that needs to be presented to the reader, it will prevent meandering sentences making the reading experience less of a chore.
Incrusted is first-person narrative and therefore the use of internal monologue should be easier to implement and it would free-up much of your dialogue to be filled with tension rather than solely being informative. Using this method could also be a good way to introduce subtext to the communicative aspect of your story; a go-to method in creating build-up tension.
Improvements to the syntax, the use of punctuation and consistent tense should be made, as well as defining the clarity between present tense and flashbacks within the text.
Decisions need to be made over what sections of the story should be expanded, and what parts should have it's word count decreased.The build-up, or 'chase', in a romance is one of the main attractions in romance novels and more focus should be given to it. There will be space later in the series to stabilise their relationship.
Skills with dialogue could be something expanded by looking into using accent, dialect, and subtext. It is a means to create and distinguish characters.