Legacy of Shadows

Hey ShadowPrincess16!

I hope you don't mind if I stop by for a review today! As per RevMo this year, there's a checklist challenge running, and one of the challenges is reviewing something from the month and year you joined the site! Your novel caught my attention!

Explanation aside, let's get into the review, shall we?

Absinthe laughed, rolling her eyes at her big brother for the millionth time that night.

you really don't have to include "big" in "big brother". Why would Absinthe be thinking of him specifically as her "big brother"? I get wanting to tell the reader as much information as possible as soon as you can, but this isn't a critical detail, and could be saved until a more natural segue. In fact, I probably would only use his name if I was writing the scene, but there's nothing wrong with calling him "brother", so that's more of a personal opinion.

Aside from their bright red eyes and the black wings that were attached to their backs. Of course, humans never saw the wings and they rarely ever saw the eyes. They seemed to overlook it all. Silly humans.

Is there magic that covers this up? This seems like a weak explanation for demons not being notice. If there was some kind of system in place or illusory magic that made demons look like any normal human/hide their demonic features (whether by actual illusion or by hiding them altogether), that makes sense, but "not noticing"...doesn't make sense. How would someone not notice red eyes and wings?

Still, she enjoyed looking like one of them. It made her forget that she was the daughter of one of the blackest hearted sons of bitches in Hell.

How does this make her forgot who she is? I would understand if there was something noticeable (like, her having scales on her hands, or claws for nails) to her (aside from the wings), but "looking like a human" to make her forget who her parentage is doesn't really make sense unless she's constantly checking herself out in a mirror, you know? She's not looking at herself on an hourly basis or anything (unless she is lol), so it's not like...something that suppresses the memory.

We’re demons.” She stated firmly,

Should be: "We're demons," she stated firmly. <- if you're following dialogue with a dialogue tag, you'll want to use a comma instead of a period, and the pronoun/dialogue tag should be lower case!

“I’ve told you a million time Abs, we’re not evil. How many humans have you saved this week?”

She didn't really...say you were evil though, just not innocent (but also, so many humans aren't either, so that was not a true statement either).

(I have to say I'm...not really a fan of the nicknames "Abs"? It's of course, up to your discretion, but it's just kind of strange to me)

“Probably not. But I’m not like our father.”

The "but" isn't really necessary, since she isn't saying something contradictory.


It seems odd to me at this point that there would be a comment about Absinthe trying to forget who her father was, since so far that's all they've talked about? I think you might want to settle for her either not wanting to talk about their father and dismissing the subject, or just going for what's already there and having her sort of dance around the edge (from self-consciousness or what have you) of "well we're not human but we're certainly not like demons either".

It had happened a couple centuries ago and he’d only partially recovered until he met the current girl.

So, I've noticed this frequently whenever it pops up in YA, but the way you've written Absinthe and Kyrian, I've gotten very teenager-ish/young adult vibes off them. If they're really a couple centuries old at least, why are they acting the way so many young adults do? Immortals are a fun concept, and it's not an issue if you want to write them in a way that they're sort of reverting back to a younger age, but it might be something to keep in mind while you're writing them (plus I love immortals who have seen so much and it really shows and has affected them heavily, so it might just be me).

“I’ve been watching out for a human girl lately. Belladonna Pollux is her name. She’s a half-demon. Not sure who her father is but Azazel wants her pretty badly. I’ve been keeping her safe lately.”

“That could be dangerous. Is this girl really worth all that?”

Absinthe nodded. “She’s beautiful Ky. And she’s more than worth it. I’ve never spoken to her face to face or anything but… I know she’s worth it. I can feel it.”

And who's the lovesick one?

(also, I would love if you expanded on this! Show us what it is about Belladonna that Absinthe thinks she's worth the risk! I wouldn't mind a little exposition about what she knows/has seen of Belladonna, because it would show the reader how much and why Absinthe really cares for her!)

A few minutes later, a scene began playing out before her and Absinthe nearly shot to her feet in anger. In the scene before her, a girl with long black hair lay on the floor in front of a huge man with short blonde hair and beady blue eyes. Azazel had Belladonna. And from the looks of it, he was going to kill her.

So, a few things. One, Absinthe has been watching Belladonna and since she recognises Azazel immediately I assume she knows what he looks like. Again, I get the wanting to describe them for the reader, but is this something Absinthe would really be thinking about the situation? When I meet up with friends, I don't categorise what colour their hair is or how long it is. Rather, incorporate it into the description as you go along! Maybe in a later chapter Absinthe "tucks a lock of Belladonna's dark hair behind her ear" or something like that. You weave in the description much more naturally this way, rather than outright telling the reader what they look like (and how many characters are actually thinking about this in the moment).

Two, "a scene began playing out before her" is really, really unnecessary. It just pads your writing with filler. Rather than telling the reader that something is happening, show us that something is happening. Describe the "menacing way Azazel stands over Belladonna" or how he's "readying an attack [<- would describe what he actually plans to kill her with rather than "attack" but idk what kind of powers or weapons he would have]" against her "unconscious form". Then you show the reader that Azazel 1) got to Belladonna 2) is going to kill her without having to explicitly say it.

Behind her, her wings were out and ready to fight or flight.

How big are her wings? How big is the apartment?

Azazel was powerful. Maybe not more powerful than the both of them together. But powerful. He was a Higher Demon and held rank over them. Technically at least. Absinthe made it a point to ignore that whenever possible.

Why is this exposition coming up right now? The worst place for it is in an action sequence. You want to keep the scene moving in an action sequence, and putting in exposition doesn't help. If you really feel it's necessary to the plot, put it in while they're travelling there, show us Absinthe's nervousness to confront Azazel , etc.

She and Kyrian exchanged glances and dropped into fighting stances. Behind them, Belladonna had passed out from her injuries. Absinthe knew they’d have to make this a quick fight if they wanted to save her. Kyrian made the first hit, throwing a fire ball at Azazel’s chest. It landed and Azazel threw an energy ball directly at his head. Kyrian dodged it but it hit Absinthe in the shoulder. She hissed in pain before cracking her neck and summoning a torture curse and throwing it with all the energy she had at Azazel. It hit its mark and he screamed as every nerve ending in his body lit on fire, dropping to his knees in anger and pain. Absinthe grinned as her brother dropped the last punch, a stunning hit to the side of Azazel’s head.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but it really didn't do anything for me as far as a fight scene is generally supposed to. It felt like the way you would just talk about a fight blow-for-blow, but there's no real flavour or flow to it. It's just "this happened" and then "this happened". Break up the sentences, add more of Absinthe's voice and her thoughts as they are appropriate (it is a fight scene, after all, so again, you want it to be snappy and fast-paced, but you also don't want it to have no tension). Play around with it and add some more meat to this. It has the potential to be a really fun fight to read! But there's not much substance here right now. (Plus, Azazel is just out. There's no extra description, nothing about what they do to him. There's no aftermath to the fight, which I would really like to see)


I have,, a few questions. Did they just leave Azazel unconscious in Belladonna's apartment? If Absinthe wants to destroy him so bad, what's preventing her from doing so? He was knocked out, he couldn't have stopped them. Why was she hiding herself from Belladonna? Why wasn't it possible to bring Belladonna to a hospital and leave her there if Absinthe wants to hide herself from Belladonna?

I'm really intrigued by the premise of this story and where it's going, but I don't feel as compelled as I would usually want to by the characters (and it is just the first chapter, so I know character development will come in later, but there's nothing that feels unique about them that makes me really want to know what happens to them, and I hate to say that because I know it's something a writer would hate to hear. I just wish they had a little more going for them, you know? They certainly aren't bad characters though!!), and you didn't really introduce the things that needed to be introduce. Does the reader need to know in the first chapter that Kyrian and Absinthe's father is a demon and that they're trying to distance themselves from him? Why are they having the conversation about passing as humans in the beginning? What is the preface to that? Why does Absinthe care about Belladonna? Why does she "wants to destroy" Azazel (there's really nowhere in the prose that I thought "ah, she hates him I see", so the "wants to destroy Azazel" line kind of threw me)? You put in really cool information in the wrong place, and I had no attachment to the beginning conversation because I don't know anything about the characters.

Why not start with Absinthe checking on Belladonna and jumping right into the action? Or why not start with Absinthe checking on Belladonna before these scene ever happens? Starting right in the middle of something is usually your best bet. I know you can argue that you did, and you'd be right, but it was still a conversation that you had to put in exposition for the reader to understand, and you usually want to avoid that when you're starting a novel.

But! I'm loving the demons and the supernatural elements! I hope this wasn't too discouraging of a review (I'm nitpicky, I know). I think this would be a really interesting start if just a few things were tweaked!


That's all I have for today though. If you have any comments or questions about anything I said, please feel free to let me know!

Otherwise, I hope you have a wonderful time! Happy RevMo

Hi, shadowprincess16! Mage here to do the promised review! So let's get to it, shall we?

I'll start with the overall problems first. There's only a couple, and I'm sorry in advance if this review makes it seem like I didn't enjoy reading this. I did; I just want to help you out with improving your writing!

Like the other reviewers have said already, this is definitely fast-paced and does more telling than showing. My suggestion to solve this is to draw the first chapter out for a longer period of time in later draft.

You use the character's names a lot when there are many of them; trying to change up your writing by using different words occasionally instead, such as "the half-demon" when referring to Belladonna.

You can definitely go into more detail on the setting. As of right now, the reader doesn't really know about where the first part of the chapter took place or anything about where Belladonna lives.

Now onto the specifics! There was some mistakes that I won't bring up, mainly because they're a missing comma or something along those lines.

"We could be counted as humans you know.”

Awesome hook! It drew me in, and I'm sure it will do the same to future readers. Also, quick grammatical point here: there should be a comma after "humans".

It made her forget that she was the daughter of one of the blackest hearted sons of bitches in Hell.

Interesting. From this comment, it seems Absinthe seems to not like her father; I'm interested in seeing why later on. Also, the phrase "blackest hearted sons of bitches in Hell" is worded strangely. A better way to say that would be the following: "...the daughter of one of the most black-hearted son of a bitch in Hell."

“Just because we look human doesn’t mean we should be counted as humans, ya know. They’re innocent. We’re demons.” She stated firmly, making Kyrian roll his eyes with laughter.

Quick dialogue lesson here! After the quotation marks, the first letter of the following word should be lowercase and, if the punctuation before it would normally be a period, it should be a comma. An example of something that wouldn't follow that type of rule would be: "We're demons." Her statement made Kyrian roll his eyes with laughter.

It had happened a couple centuries ago and he’d only partially recovered until he met the current girl.

So our protagonist is on the older, rather than the younger, side in life. Cool! Nice job at slipping that comment in.

"I’ve been watching out for a human girl lately. Belladonna Pollux is her name. She’s a half-demon. Not sure who her father is but Azazel wants her pretty badly. I’ve been keeping her safe lately.”

Nice job introducing two new characters! Though I agree with what the other reviewers said on the fast pace and how we don't get to truly learn about the characters, that was a good way to bring them both into the story.

This story is definitely has an interesting start. I'm sure you'll continue to make the story interesting as it progresses. Plus, I'm a sucker for anything with demons in it, so count me in! And besides everything I pointed out, this work is perfect! I really enjoyed reading it.

My suggestions for this? Read your work out loud before posting. Though you won't be able to catch all of your errors that way, you'll catch some of them. Also, try to throw in descriptions of setting and actions more often!

Keep up the great work - which I doubt you'll have trouble with - and good luck on your writing endeavors! Have a great day/night!