Review of Septet Legends

[Sarah Schmidt]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Septet Legends" by Justin McDonald.]

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1 out of 4 stars

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Septet Legends is an epic tale written by Justin McDonald. A standalone read, this book tells the story of a fight against evil in the kingdoms of Zestria and Hestia, brimming with magic, betrayal, and love.

The land of Eden is a paradise with two potential heirs to the throne, Adam and James II. When Adam and his compatriots are ostracized by the people of Eden, he loses his claim to the throne. Feeling embittered by the unfair treatment he receives, Adam retreats to the Tree of Knowledge, the headquarters for the mages. His feelings leave him vulnerable to the machinations of a mysterious, beautiful newcomer, Lilith. Entranced by her, Adam falls prey to the seductive pull of Lilith’s dark power, devolving into a puppet for her to control. He devises a coup to overthrow his brother, James II, and takes over rulership of Eden, throwing the land into complete darkness. The seven maidens of destiny, the rightful heir to the throne, Liam Weyward, and other mages and heroes must come together to defeat this powerful threat to Eden, restoring the land to its former glory.

The most problematic aspect of Septet Legends had to do with its grammar. The writing quality of this novel was plain terrible, having little to no redeeming features. There would be missing words that led to incomplete sentences, misspelling of words, and the names of characters were mixed up. Two examples that demonstrate just how bad the errors were are ‘to save the least’ and ‘head-over-hills.’ These factors led me to believe that this book had not been professionally edited.

The tone adopted by Septet Legends was juvenile. The entire narration of the story seemed like a children’s story coupled with out-of-place mature elements. The naming of certain things did evoke a laugh, especially those like Presto Change O, Hocus Pocus, and the Laudanum Squad, and I also spotted a variation of the line ‘the men wanted her, and the women wanted to be her,’ which was not so bad, really. Added to that, there was no build-up or suspense, and the action was lacklustre and filled with corny dialogue.

I couldn’t picture this story at all. There was a lack of setting and descriptions that made for poor imagery, and I disliked how utterly bland the worldbuilding was, in that it felt like a bunch of fantasy elements were thrown together without rhyme or reason. Much of the content is centred around dialogue rather than taking the time to set the respective scenes. On the topic of dialogue, there were little to no dialogue tags. One speaker would be constantly speaking, and instead of continuing, their speech would be broken up into separate punctuated sentences, generally indicative of more than one person speaking in traditional formats. This made it confusing to identify the person talking, and it interrupted the flow of the story to be forced to always infer the identity of the character.

Some of the names used were familiar to me, including Adam, Lilith, Anansi, Ezekiel, and Eden. I liked how the references worked in favour of their characterization. I found myself feeling for the characters only once during the entire story. It happened when I felt sympathetic toward Adam for the unsupportive and discriminatory treatment he received from the people of Eden, but that was the extent of any type of connection being formed with the characters.

I rate this book 1 out of 4 stars. As Septet Legends is inundated with errors, is told in a childish manner, and lacks vivid descriptions and an engaging plot, I believe that this rating is justified. As it is now, I think that some story elements need improvement and that the book needs to be proofread and edited in its entirety. As such, I would not recommend this book in its current state.

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Septet Legends
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[Dartemis]

I hope this book gets another round of editing because the story does sound interesting. Shame that everything is a mess. Thank you for your detailed review.

[Jasy95]

It definitely sounds like this novel had a childish tone: I chuckled reading the names of the places that you listed. Thanks for the thorough review!