Beta Reader Group discussion
Critique Partners and Swaps
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Beta Swap - 170k Epic Fantasy with vampires and necromancy
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That's up my alley! I’d be interested to read/swap for a lower YA epic fantasy. If that's of interest, shoot me a message
SUMMARY:
Comps: Rebecca Ross’ A River Enchanted and John Gywnne’s The Shadow of the Gods
Li hasn’t been home since he was a boy, fleeing his village as it was razed behind him. Now, after many long and bitter seasons, he finds himself back where he first started. Only Helvia has changed in his absence. A shadow stalks the streets, leaving bloodless corpses in its wake and warning of war of come.
Forces work to tear Helvia apart from the inside out and, in the Blue Mountains, the dead have begun to walk. As an army begins to march on Helvia, Li must work together with the new lord of the city and a swamp witch to protect their home, if their own secrets don’t tear them apart first.
CONTENT WARNINGS:
Profanity: Yes.
Violence: Yes, there is violence and gore as standard for many epic fantasies.
Sexual Content: Yes, there are “spicy” scenes and only between consenting adults. There is vague mention of sexual assault, but it is not discussed in any detail.
Loss and Grief: Main themes of the story include death and dying and the loss of humanity. Characters do die, but the story aims to maintain a thread of hope throughout it all. I don’t want to read a story that is all grim death and destruction so this should not feel like that.
Hopefully the summary is the roughest part of this novel. The story itself is longer than I'd like it to be, so I'm very open to hearing feedback on where to trim things back. At this point, the main feedback I'm looking for is if there are any glaring plot holes and if it is enjoyable to read/well-paced. This has been through several rounds of beta-reads and revisions, so it should be fairly polished. I'm not worried about minor grammar or spelling issues, so feel free to ignore any minor errors, just looking for general feedback on enjoyability.
I want to make this piece as strong as possible. I understand not every book is for every reader, so we’ll trade three chapters at first just to make sure you’re the right fit! If you’re interested, then I’ll send the first third of the manuscript over. If you’re not interested, no hard feelings (but I’d love to know what the part was where you felt like it wasn’t for you).Thanks a bunch for reading this far and happy reading!