Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is unfortunately one of the many examples on Amazon of inexperienced writers that treat self-publishing as a shortcut around having to spend years honing their skills, then writing and polishing a novel that's worthy of publication. The one thing that Mr. Brittain seems to have done correctly is use a spell-checker, otherwise... 1) The names the author uses are bizarrely inconsistent. Some suggest a generic semi-historic European influence like "Duncan," others are directly derived from fairy-tale characters ("Ella"), or combinations of them ("Gullivander"), plus there's some seemingly borrowed from an etymological dictionary ("Aelfwoad") -- and they're all crammed in "Celtia," suggesting the author wanted a historic-fantasy variant of Ireland without knowing its name. 2) The author appears to have either invested in a thesaurus without having a dictionary on-hand, or used the thesaurus without re-reading the sentence later to be sure the word he chose fully fit. As a result, we see odd choices like referring to a bulldog as a "tenacious tyke" that has "talon-like claws," and stating the king "educed qualities out of people." It's the kind of writing mistake that I'd expect from a precocious young teen eager to impress his English teacher. 3) To continue the theme of unusual language use, the author's descriptions often obviously give a completely different impression from what was intended. For example: "The flailing tongue that hung out whenever he was relaxed disappeared inside his mouth, his dark lips curled into an oval and a black hole formed between. Fangs emerged and whiskers quivered." When I read it, I thought that the dog was being transformed into some kind of terrifyingly evil monster -- but it turned out he was only snarling. 4) At other times, the author's style is so over-the-top that it reads like an unintentional parody, or alternately like the sort of thing that slightly tipsy friends might take turns reading aloud late at night for amusement. ""Oh Duncan, when will I meet my one true love? Who holds the key to my heart?" Ella asked dramatically, tilting her head. She pouted at Duncan and the bulldog simply pouted back up at her." 5) Some characters speak modern English, others speak a historic form that was seemingly made-up by somebody that has little exposure to either real-world *or* fantasy variants of Old English. To anybody that grew up reading books about King Arthur or playing classic fantasy role-playing computer games like the 'Ultima' series, it's almost painful to read at times. "Oh thou play the flute! ... Thou must be a bardess!" (I'm wondering how it is that anyone might be unaware that female bards, once they existed, were merely called bards.) 6) At least as far as the preview goes, the "plot" (as much as there is one) is rather nonsensical. The king dies suddenly just as the princess finds a golden rose-shaped key, and even though the coronation ceremony is in a matter of days, she takes off alone on foot to find a wise man despite having no idea where he is. There's no explanation for why she's looking for the man, why she's not riding a horse or in a carriage (or how she thinks she'll go any real distance beyond her backyard in time to return for the ceremony), why no guard is accompanying her, and no concern is shown for the future queen's safety (or chastity) even though her father might have just been murdered...arrrgggh. 7) There's a very unpleasant subtext to the novel that only comes through if you've read the author's blog post about stalking a woman until she called the police in terror. It's creepily clear that the princess/protagonist stands for either the woman he stalked or women in general, and that her loyal dog likewise represents him or 'nice-guy' stalkers. I'm almost glad that the book isn't of high enough quality to purchase, as I'm not sure that I want to know what resolution somebody with his beliefs would choose.