Lydia’s Comments (group member since Nov 05, 2018)

Lydia’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

I agree with the above comments. The synopsis needs simplicity and fluidity. A lot of your phrases are convoluted and don't make much sense. Just focus on being straightforward!

Rosalee, a young mixed race girl survives one day at a time in the hood as it goes from bad to worse.

Is her being of mixed race important and pivotal to the story? If so, is there another way you could weave that element of who she is into the blurb? Maybe allude to her parentage?


Hookers, drugs, and gangs are not her problem if they leave her alone. If not? They get smacked down HARD. This Rose has thorns.

What does it mean they 'get smacked down'? From the later bits of the blurb it seems to be because of special powers that she has, but you don't mention that here, so instead it just seems like this girl is abnormally versed in fighting. Weave the magic into the story here, it'll ease the transition into the later parts of the blurb.

But when the young and defenseless are eaten, zombied, sold and abused by the unnatural, Rose is the only hope they have.
Vampires and ghouls and magic, oh my. Can she save them? Can she save herself?

This again makes no sense. At this point you really haven't mentioned Rose's special abilities specifically so I'm left wondering why is she their only hope? What makes her special? Not to mention the fact that I have no idea what's happening to the young and defenseless. Suddenly there's vampires, ghouls, and magic but was this a normal part of what was happening before? Is something new happening? Were they not there before? Again, it's not clear and it only causes confusion.

It aint Oz in the hood, but her back is against the wall. Rose isn’t a wizard, but maybe a Druid will do, if that’s what she is. She has no idea; her abilities didn’t come with any more explanations or labels than the bad guys.

What. I'm so confused, I get what you're saying - that Rose had abilities she doesn't understand, but... this section is just so jumbled. Her back is against the wall? I thought the bad guys got smacked down hard so why is her back against the wall? She's the only hope for these people because of magical abilities (I'm guessing) so why should her abilities now just "will do"?

Foul mouthed at times, destroyed and reborn, if she can figure enough of it out she might live another day.

Again, be straightforward. Destroyed and reborn? Huh? Is she a zombie or a vampire or...? The 'foul mouthed' seems awkward in the midst of all this talk about her abilities, more a way for you to flag that there's language than saying anything about Rose.

Again: the core of the blurb seems like it is a solid contemporary fantasy novel, but there's just so much extra wording and use of colloquial phrases that it just gets lost. Streamline, don't loose the tone but cut out words and just simplify sentence structure.

I'm not as big a fan of this cover as the previous redesign. I think the colors on this one are not as powerful as the first one. Specifically I think it's the orange on the far right that seems uneven with the blue on the other side. I like that the blue is the same as the first cover, but perhaps adding a tinge of orange to the other side would help balance that out.

I also appreciate the male overlaid on the cover, that does link the two covers together well though the background are vastly different otherwise.

I have to say when I first see this cover I think "romance" and it takes a moment to notice the birds and how disheveled the female is. The more I look at it the more I do like it, but that was my first impression.

I like how the spiral flows from front to back, though it is obvious only because of the laid out nature of the cover at the moment. I would wonder what the back would look like in isolation and if the flow would be readily noticed (I believe it would be) and though there is nothing captivating on the back by itself the colors still look nice. I would only consider if there could be something more added to the back to create more of a reference point if seen in isolation to the front.

Also, if possible I would suggested making the title of the book larger on the spine of the book, it's slightly understated and books are often seen just by the spine.

Overall though, I do like the cover, the colors especially help bring an edge to the design!