Once Upon A Nightmare

by Piper Prescott

(Reviewed, Reedited, Resubmitted MARCH 9, 2025: No plot changes have been made.)Indiana, Sebastian, and Easton survive the brutal murder of their family. With their parents gone they only have each other to lean on. Just when they think things can't get any worse- they do. The killers aren't satisfied yet, stalking the rest of the family in the shadows. They have no choice but to leave their life behind.

Two years into the WITSEC program and the siblings are starting over- again. The siblings are still adjusting to the new life they're leading, caught in vicious cycle of grief. Enter her unexpected support Roarke, Lincoln, Ezekiel, and Atlas. But just when Indiana learns to live again, her dark past begins to surface threatening her shaky peace. Will she get her happy ending or will this story end in a nightmare?

314 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 11, 2025

Reviews

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good characters, some fun scenes, the bones of story were good. It just reads like a first draft. There are typos, scenes shift too quickly so the flow is wonky, grammar issues, etc etc. This is a debut novel from a brand new author and with some more editing and reworking of the story I think it could be really good story. It’s just not there yet.

Overall: 2.5

[Keziah · Rating 1 out of 5]

17 pages into this book and it’s clear that there was never a proofread let alone formal editing: grammatical errors litter ever sentence, characters’ names are spelt incorrectly, the formatting is atrocious (double spaces, missing spaces, only some paragraphs indented, super indentations), etc.

Stuff that doesn’t make sense to me:
• FMC described as having floor-length hair
• The school has vinyl floors
• Needing parental permission to search a bag of a legal adult

26 pages in and I’ve come to the conclusion that these people are too stupid to be in WITSEC.

DNF

[Anna Marshall · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like it, but it was riddled with errors. The characters were enjoyable enough, but the constant mistakes made it hard to enjoy the actual book. Character names changing (Samael to Samaul and back), continuity errors (the fathers eyes being blue in the beginning then brown later), lots of incorrect comma usage, not using quotation marks correctly (or grammatically), switching tense mid chapter (and sometimes mid sentence), and ENTIRE WORDS missing from sentences. It was like the book wasn’t even read after completion before publication, let alone edited. There is potential there, but I will not be continuing this series

[Suzanne Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

Middle of the Road

The basic storyline is not bad. Lots of spelling mistakes, which is not the end of the world. The formating is terrible, it goes from whit to blue coloured font which is difficult to read. There seems to be huge gaps of storyline missing, almost as if during editing someone said it was too long, but the editing does not flow properly. The bonus scenes repeat at the end of the book. It has potential if the author does a very thorough edit and rewrite on it

[Kimberly Garner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Look, get an editor. Get an alpha reader and a couple beta readers, if you already have that and this is what is turned out, make sure you get an editor, and a formatter that knows what they are doing. The plot is there, this would be an amazing book, but the errors are many, the formatting sucks and the errors make the story unpleasant to read. Fix the errors have it done up and formatted correctly then rerelease it, because it’s awful right now.

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an absolutely fantastic first book of a series, very well paced and very enjoyable.

[Michelle Phillipson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really well done!

This is a really fantastic book for an author's debut novel. I only leave reviews when something is really really good. And this absolutely is!

[Chele · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. This is a debut book for the author. I look forward to the 2nd book in this duet and reading future works! I'm always excited to read a new indie author. Dive in!

[J.L. Cres · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book! It checked all the boxes for a good why choose romance. The only thing is some of the spicy scenes seemed a bit clunky and not as natural. But generally, I liked the characters!

[WhatKnot · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate it when author's think readers are idiots. Reviewed? Re-edited?? Yeah, that didn't happen.

I'm DNFing this.
I love love love a WITSEC drama, and this one had a great premise, it's a good idea. But the writing...just no.

Why is nobody talking about the amount of typos, inconsistencies in character names and even verbal tenses.

The book has clearly not been proofread, or edited, and if the author has Beta/ARC readers, they are not being honest. There's literaly at least one error in every page.

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Check this image. The different spellings of Sebastian/Sebastion makes no sense, just choose one!
The lack of commas, half the time...The wrong tense verbs.

I am a professional translator, proofreader and editor. I also help indie authors as a beta reader, and this is just making me so mad!! And I am not even a native English speaker!! If I can't stand this, I don't know how native speakers aren't crying blood right now.