In My Opinion

Canvas of Deception by EclipseNoir123

Full title: Canvas of Deception by EclipseNoir123
Source: Review Shop by TheBlossomCommunity_
Genre: Thriller, Dark Romance
Mature: Y (abduction, blood, death, emotional abuse, explicit sexual content, graphic gore, infidelity, mental illness, murder, non-con, physical abuse, psychological abuse, self-harm, sexual abuse, stalking, substance abuse, suicide, strong profanity, torture, violence)
Status: Ongoing
First impressions: 38/40
Digging deeper: 95/100
Final thoughts: Complete
Note: Chapter 15 was the last available chapter as of the publishing of this review.

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*****

First impressions total: 38/40

Title: 10/10
Yes. Just yes. This works so well with the cover and the blurb (and, I assume, the story itself). Mystery/thriller vibes, a descent into darkness and intrigue—nailed it.

Story description: 9/10
Every time I read that line about Dominic using the victims' blood as his muse, a shudder runs down my spine. This has such a strong hook, and it leaves no doubt about what to expect in this story. Mystery, intrigue, thriller, creepiness—giving away enough to make lovers of darkness drool and send others running away screaming. I usually don't like starting a blurb with a quote, but it works here, because it seems less like an out-of-context quote and more like a tagline. My only complaint is the random double quotation marks at the end of the third segment. I assume you just overlooked taking that out. 😉

Cover: 10/10
Yep yep yep. So, so creepy. Honestly, this looks like it could be a movie poster. The look of shock in her eyes, the dark, inky hands wrapped around her face, the glowing white font—again, nailed it. My only complaint here, and this is more a lament courtesy of Wattpad, is the subtitle. It's a bit too small to really read from the title page of the book, at least on the website. It's better when I click the book on your profile and get that pop-up box. But I don't know that I would bump the size up, because if you did that, you'd have to bump up the size of your name and the graphics credit for storytellernat (great job, btw).

First chapter (and everything that came before it): 9/10
Content warning: Everybody knows I love a good list of content warnings, and yours is extremely detailed, which is much appreciated.

Dedication: I have not even attempted to come up with a dedication for any of my stories, because I don't have a specific person in mind, and I just don't think of writing something like this to my readers. But I like this. Pulling the reader down in darkness before the story even starts. Just a note, there's a missing space after the last comma, though.

Prologue: Well, that's one way to start this. Holy cow. The creep factor is through the roof, and your imagery is spot on. There are a couple of issues with the second paragraph, but otherwise, your SPAG is flawless. In the first sentence of that second paragraph, I'd add "away" after "6 feet." In the second sentence, you're missing something before "mouth," something like "facial feature, his." But your description of that smile, the blood on his teeth and dripping from the knife, her inner terror as she sticks to her training to try to apprehend him—although I don't see why she doesn't just shoot to kill, since he's trying to kill her. I think I'd feel safer about Shadowfell's streets with him dead than I would with him behind bars. But that speaks to her resolve and her integrity, which I can already see will be severely tested in the chapters to come.