Author: Squeaks7

Blurb: 

There is a fine line one walks in life. A fine line between good and evil. A Bloodline...

~*~*~*~*~*~

College senior, Delanie Drakon, survives on heavy doses of coffee, tenacity, and instinct. Alone in a world made for people who are normal, she tries daily to fit in while feeling out of place every where she turns. Keeping secrets, acting normal, pushing her limits is all a day in the life for a Charmed Being. Top that with being a Corrupted, and it becomes even more complicated. Corrupteds aren't supposed to fit in. They aren't supposed to want more, to be more, but she does. She wants it all. She wants to change her fate. Despite being the descendant of one of the Charmed world's evilest foes, with Delanie's determination, she may just do it.

Gabriel Stone is a Hunter, by both birth and trade. Joining HAXA when barely out of school, he's worked his way up the organization which oversees the Charmed World, the world within the world. His job is to ensure the Corrupteds don't break the treaty, and the humans remain clueless about the invisible world of enchantment which surrounds them. Every mission he's ever been on has gone perfect. Every case he's worked, flawless. That is until he meets one Corrupted which defies nature and turns his organized world upside down.

Now it's up to Gabriel to help protect his sworn enemy and up to Delanie to accept help from someone who only wants to see her fail. These two strangers will have to lay aside their differences if they want to make it out of this adventure alive.

First Impressions

Cover: The purple is very dramatic and I love the silver and black accents. The overall design makes me think of fairy tales, while the dragon head reminds me of Maleficent, giving me a pretty good hint about which bloodline we're dealing with.

The red font of "Bloodlines" is a little dull and blends into the darker background a bit, so it's not as eye-catching as the word "Flawed".

I like the simplicity of the design and would likely pick it up in a bookstore to see what it's about, but I also have a more minimalistic taste.

Title: Crisp and to the point. The word "Bloodlines" definitely makes me think in terms of descendants and inheritance, which matched the contents of the book quite well.

"Flawed" is a little more personal and made me curious about who or what, exactly, is flawed. Overall, the title piqued my interest and seems to match the book.

Blurb: The line at the beginning of the blurb is really great. Attention-catching and punchy. After that, it is a little long and occasionally "telly" where the main characters are concerned. It also gives me quite a bit of information about the world itself before I've even opened the book. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be a little overwhelming.

For instance, you could cut the sentence about HAXA and instead introduce us to the organization when we meet Gabriel in the actual book. The same could be said for the sentence concerning how Delanie is the descendant of "one of the Charmed world's evilest foes".

Final verdict is that the blurb is a bit long and could be considered a touch overwhelming information-wise, but it is well written and I did find myself interested.

Extra Chapters: Personally, I'm not a fan of extra chapters in the beginning of books, so absolutely feel free to take this with a giant grain of salt. I tend to skip them myself, because I just want to get into reading the actual book.

I don't mind the casting chapter so much, since that's a pretty common thing around Wattpad. However, I do find that authors who use the cast feature sometimes skimp on actual character descriptions within the book. This possibility remains to be seen, but it is something to think about and perhaps double check, since it can take away from the reader's own ability to imagine your characters.

I don't entirely hate glossaries, but I do prefer to learn the new terms unique to your world organically throughout the book. If you absolutely feel that you need a glossary, I would highly recommend moving it to the back of the book.

As for the extended summary, I'm not entirely sure why you need it, since you've already caught my attention with the blurb.

Overall Things to be Fixed: There were a handful of things I noticed that needed fixing throughout the four chapters I read.

Missing commas. You have many, many missing commas, which can impede the understandability of a sentence. You don't always miss these commas, so I assumed that you're probably familiar with a majority of comma rules. A good round of editing will probably end with those commas finding their rightful place, but it's just something to be aware of.

Separating one character's dialogue/actions/thoughts from another's. As a fan of Sarah J. Maas, I'm not a huge stickler for this rule, just as long as it's clear who is speaking/thinking/doing whatever. There were multiple times throughout the first four chapters where you would put Delanie's actions with Sloane's dialogue, etc. which sometimes made it a little difficult to understand who was doing what. For sake of clarity in each scene, you might want to go through the book and see where you can separate out each person's doings from that of another's.

The last major issue I noticed was a lack of consistency in capitalization. The words I keyed in on were: Charmed, Corrupted, Hunter and Slig. Sometimes you capitalized these, sometimes you didn't. Either way is fine, but consistency is the key here :)

Beyond these few things, I found your writing to be very clean and enjoyable. There were a few minor tense slips, and occasionally you make sentences more complicated than they need to be. All of these things are easily fixable and can make your already wonderful writing truly great.

Now for the actual reviews of the chapters I read :)

Ch. One

The first thing that struck me about this chapter were your descriptions. The initial scene was very well described without being overbearing, and that was a trend that continued through the rest of this chapter and into the other three. You also have some very nice character development right off the bat, both for Delanie and Sloane. The comparisons between the two girls were a really great way to show us each of their personalities without feeling like you were just shoving who these people are down our throats.

One scene that grabbed my attention was when Delanie and Sloane were riding the Ferris wheel. This is obviously the first introduction we have of our mysterious watcher, but there are a few things with this scene to consider. The first, glaring consideration is this: if the man is in shadows dark enough that she can't see his features (ie his eyes, most importantly) how can she tell that he's looking in their direction? There's a lot going on at the carnival, so I had to ask myself how she would know what direction he's looking in exactly. To me, it felt a bit like forced creepiness that was unneeded because the fact that he stands out from the crowd already implies his off-ness. Unless she can see in the dark better than a regular human, an important thing to consider is realism in physical ability (barring the potential for magically enhanced ability) also adds to the overall realism of the book.

That, however, is my singular critique for this chapter. The scenes following it were great in a few different aspects, but my favorites were the introduction to the idea that she's not in control of the power inside of her, that it's actually almost an entirely separate entity, and the addition of what the gypsy woman told her. That added some really awesome tension to the chapter overall, and was a great way to bring us back around to the mysterious watcher.

Ch. Two

Let me just say immediately that I LOVE multiple PoV books. It expands the world and lets us know each important character more deeply than a single PoV does.

I would like to go back to something I said concerning your blurb. After reading Gabriel's chapter, I was more convinced than ever about the point I made concerning too much info in the blurb. You did a marvelous job of introducing HAXA in a relevant chapter, in a way that didn't overwhelm readers.

But I enjoyed the introduction of Gabriel much more than the introduction of HAXA (though I would like to know what HAXA stands for?). It was refreshing that he isn't just a bloodthirsty jerk or an annoying rule-follower. He's obviously going to be in opposition to Delanie, but he doesn't feel like a foot-soldier simply following orders. This was also a clever way to introduce us to Delanie's bloodline, rather than Delanie just telling us about it herself. You managed to show us how entwined the Charmed world is with the regular world through the mention of the blood-drive along with giving us some important character information about Gabriel. The cabin was an excellent way to describe his loner nature, making some of his other behaviors later in the book make absolute sense and not seem completely outlandish.

You show him as being competent in his job, both through the musings over the werewolves in Canada and in how he orchestrated his first meeting with Delanie. (And thank you, thank you! for not having Delanie gawk like an idiot and fall head over heels for his broad shoulders and mysterious air). Her reaction was exactly what I would expect for a girl on the run.

My only critique for this chapter lies in your introduction to the terms "Greys" and "Breakers" near the beginning of the chapter. There's no surrounding hints as to what those terms might mean, and I did have to wonder if the in-world explanations were skipped because of the presence of the glossary at the beginning. Personally, I think subtle, in-world explanations and world-building show your strength as a writer much more effectively, and I know you're talented enough to do just that, because you did it so well when we were introduced to the term "Slig".

Ch. Three

I have to admit that, for me, this chapter was the weakest of the four I read. It had some wonderful additions to growing Sloane and Delanie's relationship, showing us more about Delanie's issues with her mother and her heritage (this was extremely well done via the conversation between the girls and Delanie's internal dialogue) and showing more of the power inside Delanie. Plus, the addition of the stranger at the coffee shop at the end was totally great. He gave off a perfectly creepy air without actually doing anything overtly creepy. His weirdness was subtle, and really helps give Delanie that hunted feeling, one we know is actually justified.

However, that last point is actually one of the things that made this chapter a little weaker for me than the others. Namely, I was more than a little surprised that the girl who noticed the creepy guy at the crowded carnival somehow didn't notice her new neighbor? This just felt a little inconsistent for someone who's actually trying to hide from her mother and escape her old life. She's been chased once before by her mother's henchmen, but doesn't keep her guard up and notice someone who holds a "secret agent/henchmen-ish" air about him? You're not paranoid if someone actually is chasing you, so I would expect Delanie to be much more observant about the people living in such close proximity to her.

Which sort of brings me around to Gabriel, who is, in fact, stalking her at the moment. The first thing that tugged at me is the line stating that Gabe's still trying to piece her schedule together. He's been in town watching her for about two to three weeks, if I'm remembering correctly. So I had to wonder, if he's really as good as he says he is, shouldn't he have gotten a schedule down? But this is really just a "food for thought" observation. Maybe Delanie's schedule changes more than I realize?

My biggest issue with this chapter, and particularly Gabriel's part, was the end. Gabriel's been lauded as the best of the best, the hunter that always gets his beast. He hasn't even talked to Delanie, yet he already feels like she's going to complicate his life? Of course, this could totally just be me, but that felt a bit like jumping the gun, which runs contrary to everything we know about Gabriel so far. You might consider lightening his reaction here. Perhaps he's just more intrigued? "Complicate" implies that he already thinks she's something special, which contradicts all his other thoughts about what Corrupteds are like. I get that he's been watching her, but that can only tell him about Delanie's habits, not her motives. I personally would just find it more in line with the character you've presented if he was intrigued and wanting to learn more, but "complicate" makes it sound like Gabriel's not as solid in his opinions about Corrupteds as he otherwise seems to be.

Ch. Four

This chapter in comparison felt much stronger to me. Plus it had the added benefit of Gabriel and Delanie actually coming into contact with one another, with the added bonus of a chivalric moment that fits Gabriel, yet was somehow at odds with himself too. You continue to explain more and more about the Charmed world in a way that makes it feel real. Seeing Gabriel's thoughts on Corrupted beings was a really nice way to expose the readers more to Corrupteds and make us wonder how Delanie is so different from what Gabriel has seen.

Gabriel going into her apartment and actually seeing some personal things about Delanie was well-placed here (especially as a set up for his swooping in at the grocery store parking lot). I would like to take a moment here to circle around to a point I made concerning the end of chapter three, though. Between what he sees in the apartment and the sketchbook, Gabriel starts to more naturally move into thoughts about how she might be different from the Corrupteds he's known, which leads more naturally into thoughts concerning the idea that she may be more complicated than he previously thought. You might consider moving the thoughts about Delanie complicating his life to here, where they feel more natural to me.

I would also like to a take a moment to say here, again, that your descriptions really are one of the true strengths of this book.

At the end of all of this, I have two very minor critiques.

First concerns Cashiel. I was caught between the idea that people respond to unique names, of which Cashiel is definitely one, and the idea that this might show that Charmed beings tend to favor unique names. Either way, I was a little taken aback that Delanie didn't have some sort of reaction to his strange name.

The second is the Mustang (first that Mustang should always be capitalized since it's the name of the car). I'm a bit of a car nut, so seeing her drive something cool like this brought joy to my heart. The idea that the Mustang was not big enough for Gabriel, however, caught me off guard. Now of course, this depends on make and model, but generally speaking, Gabriel should have an easier time fitting into a slick beast of a car like a Mustang than he does fitting into a modern car with their tiny amounts of leg-room.

The run-in with Cashiel definitely enforced that creepy feeling I got from him. And the addition of her magic liking him was a brilliant way to show us that this guy is likely bad news. This chapter had a really strong ending and definitely makes me want to continue reading your book.

Final Thoughts

You've done a great job of blending the normal world with the Charmed world, first and foremost. It really does feel like there could be another world waiting just under the skin of ours, and that is an idea that I've always loved.

Your characters, particularly Delanie, are interesting and multifaceted. Seeing her struggle with her powers is a storyline we've seen before, but you add so much more to her character that the storyline doesn't lose any of its potency. As a reader, I want to learn more about why Delanie wants to reject her heritage at all, especially when we know this is something no other Corrupted has ever done.

You've also done well to almost immediately set up a great conflict. What makes it even better is I'm not sure who exactly it's going to be between. Gabriel and Delanie? Delanie and Cashiel? Cashiel and Gabriel? And then there are about a dozen other team-ups that I haven't mentioned that could happen.

I genuinely want to see if Delanie's power will get the better of her, or if she'll manage to show the world that she's more than her bloodline.