Location: United States
Member Since: Feb. 23, 2011

dcfieldview

Smashwords book reviews by dcfieldview

  • Weaver Of Darkness on March 16, 2011

    Weaver of Darkness was a decent fantasy novel, fitting well into the current young adult lit "supernatural vs. teen" genre. The prologue, evoking an image of a common childhood toy becoming something evil, was disturbing enough to get my attention. As the story progresses, the teens in the story fill familiar roles; the reluctant heroine, the overprotective boyfriend, the faithful secretly-in-love-boy, the jealous girlfriend, and the parents who don't listen, to name a few. The plot is reminiscent of other similar stories - a battle of good vs. evil throughout the ages, there is always a "price" for power and desire, etc. The action is fairly fluid, bogging down a little when main character Liss, gets stuck over and over on blaming herself for everything bad that is happening. The Druid characters who are introduced fill out the back story could have been more fully developed. The ending was not unexpected, especially for this genre. My one large criticism, and it is one I have of several very well-known authors, is getting caught up on one or two words or phrases that get repeated ad nauseum through the book. In Weaver of Darkness it was the repeated use of the endearments "baby" and "sweetheart". By the end of the book, my attention was wandering from the story and focusing on how many times on a single page those two words were going to appear (in one case, it was six). Weaver of Darkness is interesting and Melissa Webb shows promise as a fantasy writer if she stays out of the trap of always needed to add that "one more word" to a sentence. (as an aside, I would expect a good editor to pick up on that kind of repetition and make note of it). Overall, a solid effort.