In My Opinion

Seraphina's Shadow by CurativeWordsmiths

Full title: Seraphina's Shadow by CurativeWordsmiths (shared account for LORAINEJD and AprilJester)
Source: Review request
Genre: Fantasy, Teen fiction, Young adult
Mature: N (death)
Status: Complete
English usage: US
Review (storyline only): Complete

Clicking the "External Link" button below the "Continue to next part" button will take you straight to the book.

*****

Review:
Okay, first, pairing a Mystery/Thriller author with a Dark Drama/Paranormal/Sci-Fi author to create a Fantasy/Teen Fiction/Young Adult story seems like it could go one of two ways: complete disaster or match made in heaven. You two are the latter. You both bring your unique abilities to the table to craft an amazing original concept, and I would love to see you expand this into a novella or a novel. I was actually hoping the end of the last chapter would be a "to be continued" thing, because there was so much possibility just from the first chapter, and I knew it would have to be a dense, rushed chapter to wrap it all up. Which it was. But it was still fantastic, and the in-between is where this can really shine.

You could keep the first chapter as the first chapter, but I'd love to see you expand upon it and split it into multiple chapters to lay the path for the rest of the story. The opening segment would make a great prologue for what you currently have, although that may change if you turn this into a longer story, of course. Starting with that little vignette of childhood is good. You could add more scenes like that as Seraphina grows, illustrating the relationship between her and Armaro instead of telling us about it, and then break that up with frequent flashbacks to undefined characters and scenes. What I'm thinking is intentionally writing those flashbacks so that it's at first unclear who the girl is, but eventually, the reader realizes it's Seraphina without you even telling them. Or you could go with a chronological order, showing pertinent scenes from past lives, although I think focusing on this life with flashbacks to the past would be better. Maybe some of them could be dreams Seraphina doesn't understand and Armaro won't explain, too.

A big question for me is why Armaro? Was he the man who didn't return the original Seraphina's love? Was he a friend, or maybe someone who mocked her for loving a man who didn't love her, or even someone who loved her and hoped the failed relationship would clear the way for him to have a chance with her? Or was he just a random person or a random soul passing by, a victim of circumstance and poor timing? Exploring this question could really add a lot of depth to the story. Maybe he doesn't even remember his origin, but when she recovers the spell to break the curse, they find it won't work without a key piece from Armaro's first life.

Moving on to puberty, you could mark that change in her life with strange bursts of magical power she doesn't understand and can't yet control, things that Armaro refuses to explain, since she is still a witch, even if she doesn't know it. And when she sees Cameron for the first time, you could have her observe the other girl from a distance for a while, too far away to see what the shadow on her back looks like, close enough to know something isn't right. More interactions with Cameron would be nice, too, and depending on how dark you want to go, you could vary her personality, showing her being mostly snappy and mean with rare glimpses of the nice girl hidden inside, broken by occasional outbursts that point toward almost demonic possession. All of that could help fuel Seraphina's desire to do something to help free the girl from her shadow.

There's so much potential with this story. The fight between Armaro and the other shadow; the flight of Seraphina and Cameron; expanding on the mirror scene, maybe even adding conversations between the current Seraphina and the original Seraphina—that's something I'd really like to see. You could show just how evil the original Seraphina is by having her try to trap the current Seraphina in the past as a pure magical oddity she wants to pick apart. Then, we could see what happens when Seraphina and Armaro are separated for too long. And, of course, taking more time with the final spells and the breaking of the curse would be really powerful. And if you feel it's appropriate, a short epilogue would be a nice touch, especially if you left the ending up in the air, so the reader doesn't know if Seraphina lived or died. You could show an adult woman overhearing a conversation about magic, or blending into the normal world until she gets home and returns to studying a spell book, and then reveal at the end who it is—Seraphina or Cameron.

Okay, I'll stop now. I could probably keep going, because this could go so many directions and excel in every one of them. But, long story short, I fully support you two turning this into a novella or a novel. Or a series, if it's running too long (or an epilogue with Cameron sets that up).