3 out of 4 stars
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Unbalanced is the debut novel by Courtney Shepard. It is a romance fantasy about four sisters who embody the immense power of the elements. Asha is the main protagonist whose element is fire, which often makes her hot headed. She is a fierce mercenary who struggles to trust and is riddled with guilt. The story is told largely from her perspective as she discovers her connection to an ancient religious cult headed by The Order. The Order are on a quest to hunt and sacrifice the four sisters for their powers. When Asha meets Clay her life is forever changed. She is constantly torn between trusting him and wanting to kill him. Will the sisters survive being hunted by The Order? Will Asha learn to trust the man who could be key to her happiness?
The plot is tense and fast paced; it grabs the reader’s attention and holds it. The characters are well written and rounded. Shepard balances the characterisation quite well, especially for the number of characters she introduces. However, she leaves a lot of questions unanswered. This could be because she wants to focus subsequent books on these plot lines, however it is frustrating that she introduces ideas and storylines then leaves so many plots unfinished.
While the plot is good, the main issue with the story is that it needs a lot of editing. There is some confusing time and character jumps that could have been explored in greater detail, which would also help fill in some missing plots. However, the benefit of Shepard’s writing is that the story is interesting enough that the editing and story errors aren’t overly obvious, yet there are still moments where it can be quite confusing due to lack of editing.
Some issues with editing are missing words ‘Time kicked back in but moving too fast now’ (pg. 23) *was in missing, ‘rolled her eyes away from gaze’ (pg. 155) his* is missing. There is also a lack of emphasis, which leads to confusion, ‘he’d seen her in his dreams, his dreams’ (pg. 28). This should perhaps be changed to ‘his dreams, HIS dreams’ otherwise the repetition is odd.There is also the odd misplaced comma ‘She retreated a step, back sliding the sword back into its home’ (pg. 31)
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. I rate it a 3 because the characters and plot are well thought out and the execution is largely well done. I couldn’t rate it any higher due to the number of editing errors and unfinished stories in the book. Despite this so I wouldn’t rate it lower than a 3 because I think the overall storyline makes up for the editing. This book would especially appeal to fantasy lovers. Romance lovers would, to a large extent, also enjoy this book, however, I would argue the romance isn’t the main draw to this story.
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Unbalanced
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