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Canvas of Deception [Azan]

Book: Canvas of Deception
Author: EclipseNoir123
Reviewer: FrostedForestFairy 
Chapters read: 18, including prologue

Title:
The title is unique and it gives a sense of what the story is about! I also like the way you used the word ‘canvas’ to subtly indicate the plot of the story.

Blurb:
The blurb is definitely good. I like the way you used rhetoric questions and directly addressed the readers. It really makes the audience dive into the story and find out what happens. You also gave just the perfect amount of context to get the readers’ attention without giving away from the plot. I could tell right from the blurb that Dominic and Victoria would have a romantic subplot. Good job!

Cover:
The cover is also amazing! I like the way Victoria's expression seems almost scared/surprised. The snake could also be deciphered as a metaphor for the prophecy or Dominic which I think is cool. The colours match the overall mood of the story. And I also like the way the ‘deception’ is sort of emphasised in the title. It really intrigues the readers.

Grammar/vocabulary:
The first few chapters have a few grammatical errors. And you tend to have issues between past and present tense. You also seem to repeat the same words/phrases close to each other which can make it feel a bit repetitive. But your vocabulary is good. I like the way you use many different kinds of words! I'll point out some of the grammar mistakes below.

Chapter 1:
“I knew that I could never truly escape the darkness that lingered within my soul.”” (you used a quotation mark at the end of this sentence that doesn’t have to be there.)

“Victoria, thank god you are awake.” (here God will be capitalised since it's a proper noun.)

“As Xander's words wash over me, a sense of relief floods through my veins, washing away the remaining fear…” (you used ‘wash’ twice in this sentence which can feel a bit repetitive.)

“His hair, a rich shade of espresso brown, that are always neatly styled, was now a tousled mess as if he had been running his hand through them constantly.” (you used ‘are’ and ‘them’ to describe the hair but hair is an uncountable noun so it'll be ‘is’ and ‘it’ instead, respectively.)

‘He sighed. “You can't leave it alone for a second now, can you?” He lets out a soft chuckle.’ (you changed tenses here. ‘Sighed’ [past tense] but then ‘lets out’ [present tense].)

“As we made our way towards the exit, the sterile halls of the hospital seemed to close in around us, suffocating in our silence.” (I'd suggest saying ‘suffocating us in our silence’ instead.)

“The peculiar man's face becoming more pronounced with each stroke. His hair cropped to his head but his eyes. Two voids…” (‘the peculiar man's face became more pronounced with each stroke.’ tense error again.)(Chapter 2)

“Together we combed through the evidence, piecing together fragments…” (you used ‘together’ twice in this sentence. I'd suggest replacing one of them with something else.)(Chapter 3)

“But amidst the chaos of our search, a sense of urgency pulsed beneath the surface, driving us ever onward in our quest for answers.” (you repeated this phrase twice with the exact same wording. This just feels off because it doesn’t really serve any purpose with being repeated?)(Chapter 3)

“My mind rushing with possibilities who the other person on the line could be…” (‘my mind rushed with possibilities…’ tense error.) (Chapter 7)

“It was already the 12 in the afternoon.” (‘it was already 12 in the afternoon.’)(Chapter 9)

“Tell me,” He murmured…’ (‘he murmured’ is a continuation of the sentence rather than a new sentence (hence why you used a comma before it. So the ‘he’ with be uncapitalized)(Chapter 11)

Personally to me, the grammar errors kind of took me out of the story a bit (especially the tense errors). So I would suggest going over your story and editing it to fix the grammar, it will improve the story by a lot, I think!

Plot:
The plot is definitely interesting. I'm curious about what the Prophecy is and how it connects all the characters together (especially Dominic and Victoria). I just have one criticism for the plot. I'm guessing you’re trying to use the dark romance trope for Dominic and Victoria. And that's fine! It can be a great trope. But it's a really slippery slope to just writing rape fics. And your one seems to be leaning more towards rape than dark romance. A dark romance would be where neither of the characters are fully good or evil and they navigate their flaws as well as the evil things happening in their surroundings while learning to fall in love. In short, in a dark romance both the characters will be a bit fucked up but at the end of the day, they work well together and love each other (and there's consent!!). In your fic Dominic just raped Victoria and you portrayed it as Victoria enjoying it. And that's truly not okay. We should never glorify rape. So I'll have to ask you to change that. It'd be a dark romance to read between the two of them if Victoria learned to love Dominic despite his flaws and problems but here I don’t think that can happen because from the very beginning there was no consent in their relationship. At best Victoria has Stockholm syndrome or something. So unless you plan on delving deeper into how messed up their relationship is and end up not making the two get together into a relationship, just remove the rape.

Flow:
I think your pacing is really good! There's enough suspense to keep the readers hooked but you also take things slow and explain everything to the readers as the story progresses. I also think the diary entries at the ends of the chapters are quite a nice touch to show flashbacks/world building without sidetracking the plot! There are a few inconsistencies I wanted to address though.

One thing you seem to struggle with is point of view. Sometimes you’ll be writing from a first person point of view but then suddenly switch to third person. For example, in chapter 7 when Sarah dies you use first person point of view for her but them change it suddenly to Dominic's third person point of view. I'd suggest keeping the point of views similar or it can be disorienting for the readers. (Although there are certain ways that point of views can be manipulated to make for an interesting story but at this stage I think you should stick to one while writing a specific story).

In chapter 11, when Victoria is kidnapped and doesn’t know who kidnapped her, she referred to her kidnapper as ‘Dominic’ although she shouldn’t know that. Just a bit of a continuity error.

In chapter 12, you do something similar. Victoria refers to Dominic as ‘the masked figure’ and ‘they’ but then switches to ‘the masked man’ for no reason.

And in the first diary entry in chapter 12, celeste refers to the girl as ‘a little girl’ first but then says she's ‘his age’ and describes her as pretty (in an almost romantic way). This is strange and slightly off-putting to me to refer to her as a little girl first.

In chapter 14, Dominic uses the name ‘Damien’ to refer to his parents’ killer. How does he know the killer's name?

Characterisation:
I genuinely like your characters! Dominic is a mysterious, morally dubious man and is very interesting to read about. And Victoria's determination to find justice and truth are a really good touch to the story. I think you can do character voices quite well because both Dominic and Victoria felt like they had distinct character voices.

One thing though, I remember Dominic thinking something along the lines of ‘I know I am selfish and heartless’ (paraphrasing). And I don’t think he needs to say it out loud. We should be able to see from his actions that he is ruthless. So basically the ‘show, don’t tell’ thing here. We should be able to decipher what your characters are like without them having to tell us.

Conclusion:
To end this review, I do genuinely believe this story has a lot of potential. The plot is very intriguing and I'm curious about what happens next. There are a few grammar and continuity errors but those can be fixed easily by editing the story. My main issue was the glorification of rape. I really think you should remove that bit and it'll make the story much better. Dark romance isn’t meant to be glorified assault, it’s meant to be a really intricate genre with a lot of depth into people's personalities. Anyways that aside, the story overall is good!!

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