(CLOSED FOR CATCH UP)Project Athena | Reviews

Author: KellyBlack_20

Reviewer: adretaRyder

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Firstly, sorry about the delayed review.

The general premise of the story is intriguing, and I do believe the blurb captures enough attention that readers will take a peek.

The first chapter, however, is a bit slow paced. I understand this, since it's just an introduction to set up the whole story (explaining why they're moving houses and what Lesley loves about the house/why she loves it) but there's 'big' words sprinkled throughout the chapter that make it difficult to get through. It gets to the point that the dialogue feels unrealistic at times. When narrating, it's fine to do this. But when it's dialogue or inner monologue and I see words like 'fervent', 'tranquility', 'rejuvenating' and 'heinous', all I'm wondering is, who talks like this? These two people are partners trying to buy a house. They've known each other for eight years. The language in such a setting should be informal, or at least less...complex than this.

I honestly would not mind if you reversed the first chapter, starting it with perhaps Jackie laying down the 9AM deadline and Lesley begging Nick to make the decision. This immediately cuts down on all the 'filler content' before and gets us to the same point. Lesley wants the house. Her begging is also a perfect excuse for you to sneak in why she loves the house, whether it be through dialogue or visuals, things that she's trying to use to convince Nick to buy the house. Then you can drop the bomb about the accident. Basically, the first chapter is the hook. Most people might not make it to the end where you have the bits about the dead girl, and you don't want that.

The second chapter also faces the same issues as the first: slow pacing and some content that feels like it's there to fill up the word count. I'm not sure what the second chapter adds to the story since it focuses on the couple waking up, preparing for the move, and Lesley running into an old friend. None of these seem to progress the plot in any meaningful way. The meeting with Jackie was a perfect chance to discuss the elephant in the room, but Lesley seems to have forgotten all about it despite having been quite curious about it the previous chapter.

Chapter three has a few inconsistencies. You talk about Nick just wanting to meet up with Jackie to get the house keys, and then later the couple being surprised when they find Jackie at the house, and her asking them how they were supposed to get in without the keys. Lesley also behaves as though it's her first time seeing the house, yet, unless I'm wrong, that was what happened in the first chapter.

Props to the fact that chapter three does get back on track and we see an appearance of this ghost. The fact that neither Nick nor Jackie doesn't hear Lesley call out the first two times is a bit odd, considering she would have been shouting loud enough for the 'person' in the lake to hear. And it's later revealed that there are no neighbours for miles. Jackie's nonchalance is well done though, giving the reader an idea that perhaps this is not the first time she has seen a reaction similar to this one.

All in all, horror/thriller type stories are not the easiest kind to pull off, especially the ones that are going into the paranormal side of things. Simply put, conveying fear is a difficult thing to do through words, since it relies on how proactive the reader's imagination is at picturing what you're showing, and in turn, how well you're showing it. So far, the only character that piques my interest is Jackie because of her knowledge of the events that happened. There's not much about Nick, and Lesley also isn't as clearly defined as I would like.

I would give this story 3 out 5 stars. You have an idea, and the story is currently marked as complete, but if you can, I'd say try to do a really proper overview of everything and organise it better. The opening chapters are a bit all over the place and slow paced.