Carte Reviews (Closed)

Juliette: Shadows of Our Sins

Reviewed by Dragonrat703

Author: N.Phillips (Promoted by tellsbooks
Title: Shadows of Our Sins
Genre: Urban Fantasy/ contemporary fantasy

Cover 5/5

The cover is excellent. The font is beautiful, and the title is very clear. You can't immediately tell that this is urban supernatural fiction, and it looks a bit like high fantasy, but this is only a nitpick. Overall, I love the cover, and it fits the story quite well.

Blurb 4/5

Your blurb has an excellent hook and brief description of the main character. It's definitely great to get people interested. However, in the sentence, "In a world under demonic control, seventeen-year-old Aliyah Dawn yearns for a better tomorrow in a reality of violence and corruption," you get a bit wordy. We already know that the reality is violent and corrupt, since you explained about the demons in the paragraph above. Ending it at "yearns for a better tomorrow" would probably make for a cleaner and less confusing sentence. You also use the word "corruption" twice in the same paragraph, and finding a different word would make it a lot better. That said, this was a very good blurb, and it definitely made me excited to read the story.

Title 4/5

It fits the story very well, and immediately intrigued me. It's similar to many other titles, but it fits the book and adds a layer of suspense and mystery even before reading it. Good job!

Plot 8/10

I loved the plot, and it kept me wanting to read more. You opened with an intense action sequence, which is the perfect way to open a book like this. However, I feel like your exposition explaning how Aliyah is a demon slayer and has powers came a bit soon and went on for too long, and I would recommend weaving this in smaller increments through the action sequene. The scene with Valerie on the rooftop was heartbreaking and extremely well-written, and also launched the plot in an excellent way. The time skip was a bit jarring, but works for the story. However, when Lucas is explaining what happened while Aliyah was in the coma, he says that people were doing "things that should be impossible." This felt a bit vague and it was odd that Aliyah accepted that without question. Having Lucas explain or give examples of what kinds of things would be more realistic. Overall, though, the plot was quite gripping, and every event propelled it forward, making me want to read on and find out what happened next. You are great at keeping the suspense and mystery going, and trapping readers into a cycle of never wanting to put the book down.

Character development 12/15

Your characters were well developed. Aliyah had clear goals, and you added many flaws, which make her an interesting and realistic character. She shows strength in the face of traumatizing situations, so she is a likeable main character. I feel like the moment when she slapped Lucas was handled inadequately and the situation wasn't addressed with the seriousness of what it was. She apologized, but they made up right afterwards. What she did was actually abusive, and I feel like it would damage their relationship more than it did. It's treated quite casually, but when a partner slaps another partner, leaving a mark, it is extremely serious. That said, I did love how she has many flaws and you can see her going down a bad path. You can understand why she makes every action, and she's very clearly defined. Lucas's motivations of keeping the girl in his band were a bit unclear, so I would have him talk more about why. He also seemed very nonchalant after they murdered a person. Murder, even of a bad person, is a shocking and traumatizing experience, and showing the effects on Lucas and Aliyah a bit more would improve the story.

Spelling and grammar 9/10

Your spelling and grammar were nearly perfect, with me only catching one or two small errors. For lack of a better category to fit this into, I thought I'd mention that the word "she felt" is used a bit too often. It's a filler word and distances us from Aliyah. Instead of saying, for example, "She felt angry as she watched the girl," you could say "Anger rose within her as she watched the girl," or focus on her physical sensations. Other than that, this was a clean and very interesting read, full of good descriptions. Also, you sometimes use phrases like, "She left, feeling disregarded." Instead of telling us that she was feeling disregarded, try letting us infer it through her actions or describe her physical sensations and emotional thoughts.

Overall 8/10

This makes for an action-packed, thrilling read that'll keep readers hooked for hours. Cleaning up some character development and sentences will make this an engaging urban fantasy that readers will love. Thank you for requesting!