Sebastian tightened his grip on the steering wheel of the little MG.
Car opening cliche. Cliche betrays a lack of creativity. On the plus side, this sentence introduces a character and the fact that he (or she depending on how wild your imagination is) is gripping the steering wheel has an element of foreshadowing. But this is what any opening line should have.
Chapter 1:
Harry Clifton was woken by the sound of the phone ringing.
Bed setting cliche and phone call cliche in one sentence.
First thing said:
"They're trying to kill us."
This is more like it. The dialogue works at revealing a rather important plot point, so top marks for the opening dialogue not being something redundant like,"Hey!"
Verdict: Epic Fail
Sorry, Jeff, but this gets the epic fail award because it hits a three-cliche-opening home run in the prologue and in chapter 1. Cliches are overdone and fail to hook anyone who reads more than 30 books a year. But I suspect the writer knows this and knows that the hook is in the byline.
Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht
You need to be a special kind of author-addict to wait patiently year after year, for one book of a chronicle to be released and then again, wait. not that Lord Archer had left me with much of a choice. I am reading him since I was 14 and he is the only author 'since then' who has always delivered, beyond expectations.
ReplyDeleteBe CareFul What You Wish For begins with a faux news of Sebastian Clifton's death, which his parents Harry and Emma soon realise, was wrong. Sebastian friend and Martinez's son had died instead, in an accident which was staged to kill Sebastian.
Martinez had already wanted revenge for reasons stated in the previous book. Now he was after blood. He wants to destroy the Barrington-Clifton dynastyand will stoop to any level. Sebastian with his mentor, tries to outdo Martinez with extremely clever plot but does need to accept defeat. Martinez wanted to serve revenge cold, and Sebastian was all out to save his family. In this book, the next generation is shown active so I am assuming, the next book would be more about them.
A brilliant read!