Reveal (by VampireQueen1006)
*Note: all chapters were read

Reviewer: Borbityborb

Book cover - 5/5

The art is beautiful and the girl is how I would picture Laurel to look like. I also like the addition of a mirror, because the vampires travel through them.

Book title - 4.5/5

I think the book title describes the story well; so does the book series name, “Vampire Queen”.

Book description - 4/5

The book blurb by itself is good; in my opinion it could be less wordy and have some paragraphs formatted differently to make it have more impact. Since it’s rather short here’s how I would reword it:

What would you do if your reflection came out of your mirror?

Laurel Johnson was a normal girl. She had everything an average person could want: a loving family, best friend, and good rep in school. But the sudden arrival of a stranger changes her life.

Her destiny is revealed: she is to rule a realm of fantasy. She has magical powers, frightening enemies, and deaths to avenge.

Welcome to The Vampire Kingdom.

If you want a professional feel to the book blurb, you could remove “Happy reading, dear readers” as it is less a part of the summary, more an author’s note.

Prologue - 3/5
(This covers “Ch-1: I Am Your Twin Sister”)

The plot and premise in itself is captivating and got me interested in what was going to happen next. In a grammar sense, it could be improved; the paragraphs could be formatted better and there are some grammatical and spelling errors.

When you edit in the future I recommend putting this chapter under Google Docs or Grammarly. Here also is a piece of advice about paragraphs I’d like to give you, the acronym TiP TOp!
Ti for time change, P for place change, TO is for a topic change and p is for a change of person.

Plot - 13/20

In your form you said you wanted me to focus on Chapter 12 and beyond, but my observations also apply to the chapters before.

As requested you are looking for mainly plotholes. One is Emilia introducing herself in Chapter 1 as “Emilia Innes” even though her last name is “Hawthorne”. A second is - why would Clara wait almost 10+ years to tell Agnes the truth of her father and inheritance? Additionally, why would Al only visit his family after said 10+ years? Why not 8 years ago? Or 9? It seems like a big coincidence. Lastly, I’m confused if the evil vampires are called “Blackridges” or “Blackthornes”.

Other than that, I’ll delve into other aspects of the plot:

First is lore dumps. I feel the use of lore dumps could be lessened. Mainly the information we get from the Vampire World is via exposition from Clara, Emilia, Al, or anyone associated with the realm of vampires. I feel it’d be better for Laura to experience these firsthand, such as when she experienced her Transformation, Awakening, and Thirst and learned what it means through her experience.

Second is the world-building. The world is my favorite part of the plot. I like the idea that vampires, hunters, werewolves, and witches are in the same realm and potentially live in turmoil! I wish that Laura had, as mentioned previously, met one or some of these beings so I could immerse myself in this supernatural world more. In terms of world-building I was surprised the novel was mostly set in Laurel’s school and house; it would be more exciting to have a more diverse range of locations, such as a forest for when El and Em train with their dynameis.

Third is the plot twists. The premise of the plot twists are intriguing and I loved them! That Agnes’ mother was married to a vampire prince, El’s parents being ex-members of the vampire court, etc. However, I do feel like they could be revealed better. Respectively, Clara and El’s parents just give exposition on the past, and the plot twists don’t really have any weight on the plot itself. For example, El doesn’t feel betrayed by her parents and Agnes doesn’t seem too fazed that she is a princess. Basically, show more, not tell, the plot twists.

Last is the conflict. Similar to the plot twists, they don’t really have any weight on the story because they are resolved rather quickly. For example, Agnes doesn’t seem too distrusting of Em, El quickly bonds with Em without any problem, the vampire sisters are quickly forgiven for accidentally draining brood from their little brother, Al and Shelly get back together again with little to no problem, etc. Perhaps you could prolong the effects of these conflicts, which adds depth and tension to your story. The reason why I like Chapter 16 the most is because we had real tension between the Hawthornes and the Blackthornes - many people were in danger of dying, and it was El’s first time to test her powers in true combat.

Overall, the lore is creative, intriguing and definitely something I’d love to read about, although it could be built into the plot better. I recommend focusing on El’s struggle to balance her vampire and school life, and - following the plot - eventually giving in to her destiny as the vampire queen.

Characters - 7/10

Usually I detail my observations on characters one by one, but I’ll only do this for Agnes and Clara. The rest is mostly focused on character relationships.

I feel Agnes has lots of untapped potential that is not yet utilized. For example, since she is a princess, won’t El feel she is a threat to her power? Won’t this affect their friendship? In terms of her personality, I feel she adapts to the world of vampires too quickly, even if she loves the supernatural. I’d expect her to be more wary of El and this would be another test of their friendship. Her personality seems to be bubbly and supportive, but I’d like to see more of her flaws.

As for Clara, I really wonder why she is willing to risk her life to take care of Emilia? And how did she not get caught? I understand that she is a princess and her nephew, Agnes is a princess too, so perhaps its her sense of responsibility to protect other royals. If this is the case, it wasn’t really made clear. Second, why did she not help Al out of his grief? Why didn’t she arrange for Agnes to meet him at least once or twice, or at least give Agnes an explanation earlier?

The first character dynamic I’d like to focus on is Laurel’s and Emilia’s. I love the abilities they share and their relationship. Like I said, I’d like if they faced more conflict, especially at the beginning. For example, make El question Em’s claims of them being vampires, and make it harder for Em to prove her point is true.

The next characters I’ll focus on I’ll call the “plot twist characters”; these are the side characters who are not what they seem. They are El’s parents, vampire hunter siblings Nat and Nate, and Agnes’ parents. Like I said in the plot section of this review, their true identities could have more of an impact on Laurel and the other characters. I’ve observed that when they revealed their true natures most characters quickly get over it, like this is something that doesn’t bother them too much. I also noticed these plot twist characters don’t really explain how they got in their given situation, and if they do, don’t tell Laurel much about the experience. I’d like to know how they felt about being in the court of vampires, or hunting vampires, or the dangers of being hunted for forbidden love, etc. It’d also be a nice addition for Laurel to learn something from their pasts so she won’t repeat their mistakes.

Lastly I’ll touch on Clara and Al’s relationship. I would’ve liked to see some sibling banter between them, and also more explanation on their relationship itself. Are they on good terms? Does Al somewhat resent Clara for a past grudge?

Overall, the characters’ personalities are well-rounded, relatable, and likeable, although Agnes could use some more flaws. Emilia is definitely my favorite, because she has to adjust the human world, train, and take care of her older sister - that’s three heavy tasks! It’s really how the characters interact with eachother that could be improved.

Pacing - 4/7
Sometimes it feels too slow because of the lore-dump, while in the other hand too fast because of the lack of conflict/tension (for example, Nate quickly gets over the fact that Agnes is a vampire and still loves her).

Enjoyment - 4/7

With honest feelings, I was intrigued by the lore of this book and excited to see how the characters would fair with it and eachother. When they did, however, I always felt that the interaction could be more; that I could’ve seen and learned many more things. I also wish El’s attention was less focused on meager things like school bullies and stealing Agnes’ pajamas, and more on serious things like a crisis of identity and troubles with her powers.

Writing technique - 9/10

The first perspective is a great choice for this kind of book about sudden destinies and the struggles with it, and you wrote it well. There’s one chapter I’d like to take note of - Chapter 11 - where the POV briefly switches from El’s to Agnes’ so that we can see Agnes’ “dream” of her father leaving. Since this only happens once I suggest you just write it so that Agnes recounts her dream to El, thereby keeping the POV being El’s consistent.

You have adept skill with figures of speech, particularly your metaphors. I love them! I also like how you write fight scenes, conversations, and descriptions of places and objects. The mystical objects and fruits are creatively written.

You asked me to help you with chapter naming, but I think all the chapter names are fine. For me, the only thing to improve with them is the capitalization.

Grammar/spelling/vocab - 6/10

Chapters 1-9 have a lot of paragraph, grammar, and spelling errors. In those chapters it was difficult to tell who was the character speaking the dialogue, and there were a lot of filler words such as “like”, “sort of”, and “seem”. But the chapters from there on out have definitely improved, so kudos! I only rated it 6/10 because half of the chapters could be edited. If those chapters were edited, I’d give this a solid 10/10.

Overall - 59.5/84

Thank you for being very patient with my review, I’ve been so busy and I really appreciate it. I believe “Reveal” has lots of potential to be a unique, thrilling fantasy book like “Shadow and Bone” which - by the way - is one of my favorite books!

The key takeaway of this review is to improve the conflicts, whether it be man vs. himself, man vs. man, or man vs. the world. Make them have more impact. Make them affect the characters and plot more. Give each seemingly positive thing about being a vampire a drawback, and have this drawback slow the characters down from their goals.

I hope this review could help you polish your story - as Reveal is a book in a series, it’s important to lay a strong foundation to hook readers on the long run. Seeing your improvement with writing in the book was amazing, and I believe you are more than ready to make “Reveal” the best version of itself.