Candle burning in the dark

Information

Status

Hiatus

Year

2021

Author

Lisfer

• A play of shadows
  Dec 15, 2021
• The suspicious log
  Dec 15, 2021
• There she goes
  Dec 15, 2021
• Aftermath of a bloody battle
  Dec 13, 2021
• Blood on the meadow
  Dec 12, 2021
• Making friends
  Dec 12, 2021
• Into the deep forest
  Dec 11, 2021
• Darkest before dawn
  Dec 11, 2021
• In the dark of night
  Dec 11, 2021
• We are in the army now part 2
  Dec 11, 2021
• The lady of the night
  Dec 11, 2021
• We are in the army now
  Dec 11, 2021
• Beginnings
  Dec 11, 2021

Reviews

Community Reviews(5)

• Lord TurtleRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  TLDR: Would recommend with some caveats and things to note.
  Review:
  For the most part I think everything works really well within the story. I think that although the author is not a native english speaker, they manage to thread the needle and crafted a wonderful story out of it. Furthermore, I think that although the story does stumble quite a bit in the first quarter, by the second half, I was quite intrigued by what was going on and wanted to keep reading to find out more.
  Caveats: Two main things here.
  1) The author's prose and style definitely gets a lot better as time goes on, but I think that there is a certain fumble when it comes to the starting quarter. What this entails is basically a very clunky beginning that almost hit home but just not quite. After that though, it definitely picks up and becomes a gripping narrative.
  2) This one I think is down to a personal preference or just how used to something a person can be. One thing I ended up both liking and hating at the same time were the transitions between characters. What I mean by this is that there are a lot of transitions and for the most part the author effectively uses most of them. However, there are some that just left me a bit more confused or disrupted the flow of the chapter slightly.
  Overall: I really like this and would recommend it for anyone looking for something a bit more dark, gritty and still very much meshed within a fantastically grand story.
• AMjoanRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  The story is well written and entertaining. I thoroughly enjoyed the story. The only be issue is that the authors prose can be a little clunky but that improves as the story goes on. The characters are well written and relatable. The plot is paced nicely not so fast as to feel rushed nor so slow as to be a slog to read. Overall it's absolutely worth a read.
• BrGastlRoyal Road

  ★★★★ 4.0

  Normally I review the workd harsher than the average. As such I was always baffled why I this work had a a comparable negligible differnece between my ratibg and the average.
  After a while I think I slowly understand.
  While the writing is relatively consistent (small details ignored). And I can't fault grammar and orthographie. It has also some faults.
  The world building is - I wouldn't say ingenious - but it follows a spectrum of novels who make it quite deep. With myths as a basis for the rules of the magical world. Which makes it interesting. Though the author doesn't manage to draw upon that ressource, I often find his quote at the start more intriguing than the worldbuilding - which is for a worldbuilding freak like myself an Achievement. The worldbuilding feels a bit stiffled. It doesn't support the story, while its important for introducing our MCs enemys it otherwise isn't mentioned. Which makes the worldbuilding more of an plottool than a fantasy and dreaming inducing supplement for the readers mind.
  The same thing goes for the Multi POV. I think it would have been better if the author would have been more diciplined with seperating the viewpoints. At the start of the novel I found it quite interesting to mesh them together within a same dialogue, but after a while I think its a bit confusing. The characters are nice and I like their relations between each other, but sometimes you have to stop and wonder who said what. Which can be quite a pain if you want to just indulge yourself a bit. I often find myself reading this novel, putting it away doing for 5-10minute something before I am able to read it again. It has some charme with that style, but it is not necessarily good.
  Overall a piece which I can recommend, when you want something for in between, but can be frustrating to read since some techniques which the author uses to write this novels don´t complement each other, but even hinder each other.
• luda305Royal Road

  ★★★★ 4.0

  Full disclosure: I was drawn to this because it was about female mages and had "candle" in the title. If you know my work, you know what I mean.
  As the author fully discloses, he is a non-native English speaker and this is his first story. As a practice piece, I think it's rather good; far better than anything I could write in my non-native languages.
  That said, for a native English-reading audience the primary hurdle is grammar and style.  The author is clearly improving, even chapter by chapter, but it can be difficult (very difficult) to follow at times.  The good news is that there is a certain level of maturity to the story which makes it bearable in my opinion. There are perhaps flaws in the substance of the story, but by and large those are overshadowed by the technical problems.
  The story itself is quite good (albeit difficult to follow at times). It's basically a high fantasy of two female mages with tragic backstories trying to make their way in the world.  They finally meet each other in the most recent chapter.
  A content warning. The story is rather dark, especially the first 5-8 chapters (approximate).  Among many other things, one protagonist is drugged and involuntarily prostituted.  She kills the john and escapes, but up until then, it's rather harrowing.
• ElgoreRoyal Road

  ★★★ 3.0

  Very interesting story with good worldbuilding, but the clunky grammar & prose greatly hamper the delivery. It makes it slower & harder to read, as the reader needs to sometimes put pieces together to understand what's going on.
  It does slowly improve over time, but earlier chapters need significant review, especially as these are the chapters that are meant to hook the reader.