Darian Smith

At least it was a very short book and an easy read. It has some useful pointers on building a character's psyche, however, the text is scant. The examples it uses at the end of each chapter are clear and pertinent. I do not know if I could recommend this as the text is all too brief, it reads more like an outline or orderly set of notes with worksheets interspersed throughout. Although, I can see how this book is useful to a writer working on creating characters. I guess I'm a little ambivalent about this one, but I am also not sorry that I read it.… (more)

This fantasy book starts off as a murder mystery, and then gets intriguingly complicated by political issues and everyone having their own agenda.

It worked well as a mystery, with clues being presented at a decent rate, and the plot strands were all plausible. I very much enjoyed that the characters each had their own motivations, and they were most definitely not all on the same side. There was a decent balance between action and pondering over the evidence, as you'd expect for a mystery. Personally, I wouldn't have minded less of the internal thoughts and characters suggesting interpretations of the evidence to each other—at points it felt belaboured and over-explained.

Additionally, particularly in the middle third or so, the characters felt... less distinct as personalities and more obviously actors to move the story on. It didn't significantly hamper my enjoyment, but some of the decisions/speeches felt forced rather than arising naturally.

I found the setting somewhat vague. The investigation moves to what I thought was a small town, but sometimes the inhabitants are described as villagers, and it feels like there's only one tavern. Even so, there's a description of the town undertaker having a number of viewing rooms, which seemed rather a lot for a small population.

The prose was pretty clean, with just a few typos that I noticed. What was more noticeable was the author's fondness for similes. When a single paragraph contains two similes, I get distracted by wondering when the next one's going to appear, and then I lose track of the story.

Overall, I enjoyed the read, and I look forward to finding out what happens next.… (more)