Riley Hill

I read the sample preview.

There is the core of a decent story here, but it's so buried. The plot itself is derivative (I was strongly reminded of a couple of stories by Connie Willis, for instance) but that isn't the biggest problem. The plot is so buried under piles of distracting description, and the description is buried under piles of editing errors.

For instance:

"Her hair was a bustle of curls, dying auburn in the dimuted candlelight, and her face was cream with satin eyelashes and claret lips."

I presume dimuted is meant to be diluted, or possibly muted, who knows. Even then the sentence wanders around to the point of distraction. Indeed, the very first sentence of the story also manages some tortuous syntax, while making sure we understand the very important to the plot fact that someone has their arm hidden under red satin.

"It was in the darkness before the dawn that Judith touched Mary Beth’s arm, hidden beneath her red satin sleeve, and prodded her into wakefulness."

Except, of course, it's not important at all.

Anyway, by the time the story hook rolled around, I was thinking a) someone doesn't understand what the "short" in short story means and b) well i saw that twist coming from the point of the meeting early in the story, and c) wow, this needs editing.… (mais)

These are my reasons for not wanting to read this specific book. Although it is not required that I justify my decision, I am noting these reasons for my own use.

Not far in Crystal goes from playing and owning a violin to "Pausing to assess her ring collection, she then looked at her fiddle." All to this point, she had a violin. Two similar instruments, but not the same thing. I also was bored by this point as the beginning made me think of a scene from xxxHolic (Japanese anime/manga) and then we spent far too much time on her clothes. I don't really care that she wants to whine about her breasts growing and that she is "dressed and pert in a tight creamy top and shorts". Her earrings didn't matter either to me. Or that home is where "mother baked cookies and her father listened to the evening news" since she's supposed to be trying to evade the mystery blob chasing her (this blob chase again reminds me of an anime scene). Last time I was working to get away from anything my parents view habits and cooking habits weren't on my mind. I also don't care about her poster, faux tiffany light. After the fiddle/violin snafu, it began to switch back and forth. It spends so long in the first part with this kind of mess that I can't get through the sample on Amazon, let alone find a reason to spend money on the actual book.… (mais)