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Root Work
There is someone taking the remains of children out of St. Louis cemetery, and Pascal “Pax” Moreau is dragged into finding out why. Pax is an aspiring hoodoo Doctor who’s got tricks up his sleeve and a mojo in his pocket.
Being the mixed-race child from a left handed marriage left him between two worlds, both filled with magic. French witchcraft and creole root work are common in his city. When it appears old French magic and a special codex are behind the body snatching, Pax becomes more invested in his task of finding the culprit. If only to gain some knowledge and power of his own. Too bad that means he has to work with the De Lancre’s, an old French family who has plenty of spell books but no magical talent. Well maybe there is some hope for Jean De Lancre, a young man who catches Pax’s eye. The two work together to retrieve the codex, and learn more about each other, and the worlds they occupy. Both find themselves on the outskirts of society, unable to fit into the neat little boundaries that 19th century society has constructed. But then New Orleans has always been a magical city full of peculiar people, and they tend to find each other.
LGBTQ Book
Length 43,000 words
Being the mixed-race child from a left handed marriage left him between two worlds, both filled with magic. French witchcraft and creole root work are common in his city. When it appears old French magic and a special codex are behind the body snatching, Pax becomes more invested in his task of finding the culprit. If only to gain some knowledge and power of his own. Too bad that means he has to work with the De Lancre’s, an old French family who has plenty of spell books but no magical talent. Well maybe there is some hope for Jean De Lancre, a young man who catches Pax’s eye. The two work together to retrieve the codex, and learn more about each other, and the worlds they occupy. Both find themselves on the outskirts of society, unable to fit into the neat little boundaries that 19th century society has constructed. But then New Orleans has always been a magical city full of peculiar people, and they tend to find each other.
LGBTQ Book
Length 43,000 words
124 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 12, 2018
7 people want to read
About the author
A.G. Wolf
1 bookA.G. Wolf was born in Germany and spent most of her younger years in the small town of Blatzheim, where fairy tales and magic were a common part of her life. Brother Grim tales where never censored and morale stories with morbid endings kept her a well-behaved child who would grow up with a fascination in the supernatural and magic. When her father’s service moved her family to the US she developed a deep interested in history and her mixed heritage. Currently residing in Florida with her wife, she uses her passion for history, fantasy and magic to spin tales that capture the imagination.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 24, 2018
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
There are levels of bad writing and then there are books that go so beyond the pale that the reader is thrown into the stark reality of the work of fiction as directly linked to the textual element. Or, to be more succinct, flaws in the construction of the text remind the reader that they are indeed dealing with a text. Any extraneous element is, by definition, compromised. It is akin to a building with crumbling foundations, it follows that the walls will be crooked and no amount of decoration can ever turn into it a home. Even if the plot and characters had been absolutely riveting, which they are not, this novel could not even hope to ever achieve mediocrity.
To give an idea of poorly constructed this text is, I kept my usual score of errors, misspellings and the like. Normally I will have a handful of entries, at best, and these will pertain to minor issues such as the occasional missing word, a missing quotation mark, etc. In this case I logged in nothing less than 248 such errors. This means that in every single page there are problems.
It gets even worse, unfortunately. It is not simply a matter of bulk but of quality. Throughout the book the author displays an utter disregard for verbs, spelling, punctuation or the very basics of the English language. I feel compelled to address each of these, separately, in order to prepare the potential reader and have them make an informed decision on whether reading Root Work is worth their time.
When it comes to verbs, the confusion is complete. Sentences switch from one tense to another and in one case, both tenses are actually present: "That is was made his heart race". The conjugation is iffy and more often than not is entirely missing, with irregular verbs being treated in most random of ways so that we encounter such gems as, "he was use to "; "he flick his hair", "he’d gown up", “prided” instead of ‘pried’; “rung” instead of “wrung”.
As bad, if not actually worse, are the many instances in which one verb is mistakenly used for another one or more or less coined on the spot: “barrowed” instead of “borrowed”; “headed” in lieu of “heeded”; “crocks” in lieu of “croaked”; “wonder” instead of “wander(ed)”, “preform” instead of “perform”, “shutter of apprehension” for “shudder” and perhaps my favorite, “waist away.”
I must stress that these are not typos. These and many other errors are systematically repeated, all across the book, with gusto. Expect ‘it’s’ when the possessive case is meant ("It drew It's magic.") and even vice-versa, “its only logical that perhaps.”
Amid such utter disrespect for grammar, a few grievous mistakes caught my attention for being hilarious. That is the case of, “You’re dinner” (unfortunately no cannibalism was involved), “surgery breakfast” (as opposed to “sugary”), “He would throw around his money, his statues and his position” (as opposed to “status”), “taking a long waif of the cooking meat.” (as opposed to “whiff”), all of this culminating in this sentence that needs be highlighted:
“What are the ingeminates?”
‘Ingeniminates’ is supposed to be ‘ingredients’. Context alone allowed me to decipher this one. Other oddities include repeatedly using the term “church serves” instead of “church services”; using “Jean motioned a crossover his chest" to describe a character doing the sign of the cross, thus combining the habit of either agglutinating words together or splitting them (“crest fallen”) without bothering to google. I was raised Catholic but I do not expect everyone to know their liturgical nomenclature but a quick search for ‘Catholic cross gesture’ immediately generated plenty of results, virtually all of which included the correct and widely used term.
It goes almost without saying but there are virtually no commas to speak of. The ones that do appear are sprinkled haphazardly and do more to disturb the flow than anything else. Each and every single one of the above mentioned elements would be bad enough on their own but together they conspire to create what is possibly the very worst piece of prose I ever encountered. To the point that issues that would normally be borderline amateurish, like replacing the characters’ names for descriptions, (“the blond man”, “the darker man”), get almost entirely lost in the sheer inanity of writing that would not be acceptable at a grade level.
Regarding the story proper, apart from being so hampered by overwhelming structural flaws, it suffers from plenty of problems. The setting of Old New Orleans is already rich with imagery and cultural diversity. The perspective of a mulatto hoodoo doctor added to the potential by allowing the novel to explore, even if only superficially, such themes as racism, social inequality and the still little known world of the African (and their descendants) community in the city. Even without putting into play sexuality issues, Root Work has so much to work with that it is a marvel how it managed to fail on virtually all fronts.
The romance between Pax, the title’s root doctor, and Jean, a rather fey and fidgety nobleman, is not well handled. For roughly 90% of the time Pax is profoundly annoyed at all that Jean does, Jean’s body language alone drives Pax insane; Jean himself is supposed to be innocent and lacking in self-confidence but he come across as bordering on the mentally handicapped. It is as if Pax realized he was in a m/m novel and two thirds into it decided it was time to reciprocate Jean’s advances because the blurb said so.
This brings me to the other coordinate of this novel, namely the mystery. Root Work is not just about budding love across racial boundaries, it is also about dark forces that lurk in the deepest recesses of the human psyche. The plot hinges on Pax trying to solve said mystery by tracking and stopping whoever is stealing the corpses of young children from the cemetery of Saint Louis.
Events that baffle the characters have such an obvious cause that I called it 91 pages in and decisions are made that are so utterly reckless that they veer into stupidity.
In all honesty, and perhaps for the very first time, I am at a loss to find any positive aspect. It reads like a text originally written in some other language that was then translated into English by someone who had a vague knowledge of the language. A simple spellcheck would have done this one wonders but there is so little effort put into it that no-one seemed to have gone to the trouble.
Had I paid money for this, I would have asked for a reimbursement. If the author truly expects this to be the first volume of a series then I suggest going back to square one, submitting it to a serious overhaul, employing beta readers and/or editors and taking classes in the English language. There are basic requirements to write anything whatsoever and this one does not even come close to clearing them.
There are levels of bad writing and then there are books that go so beyond the pale that the reader is thrown into the stark reality of the work of fiction as directly linked to the textual element. Or, to be more succinct, flaws in the construction of the text remind the reader that they are indeed dealing with a text. Any extraneous element is, by definition, compromised. It is akin to a building with crumbling foundations, it follows that the walls will be crooked and no amount of decoration can ever turn into it a home. Even if the plot and characters had been absolutely riveting, which they are not, this novel could not even hope to ever achieve mediocrity.
To give an idea of poorly constructed this text is, I kept my usual score of errors, misspellings and the like. Normally I will have a handful of entries, at best, and these will pertain to minor issues such as the occasional missing word, a missing quotation mark, etc. In this case I logged in nothing less than 248 such errors. This means that in every single page there are problems.
It gets even worse, unfortunately. It is not simply a matter of bulk but of quality. Throughout the book the author displays an utter disregard for verbs, spelling, punctuation or the very basics of the English language. I feel compelled to address each of these, separately, in order to prepare the potential reader and have them make an informed decision on whether reading Root Work is worth their time.
When it comes to verbs, the confusion is complete. Sentences switch from one tense to another and in one case, both tenses are actually present: "That is was made his heart race". The conjugation is iffy and more often than not is entirely missing, with irregular verbs being treated in most random of ways so that we encounter such gems as, "he was use to "; "he flick his hair", "he’d gown up", “prided” instead of ‘pried’; “rung” instead of “wrung”.
As bad, if not actually worse, are the many instances in which one verb is mistakenly used for another one or more or less coined on the spot: “barrowed” instead of “borrowed”; “headed” in lieu of “heeded”; “crocks” in lieu of “croaked”; “wonder” instead of “wander(ed)”, “preform” instead of “perform”, “shutter of apprehension” for “shudder” and perhaps my favorite, “waist away.”
I must stress that these are not typos. These and many other errors are systematically repeated, all across the book, with gusto. Expect ‘it’s’ when the possessive case is meant ("It drew It's magic.") and even vice-versa, “its only logical that perhaps.”
Amid such utter disrespect for grammar, a few grievous mistakes caught my attention for being hilarious. That is the case of, “You’re dinner” (unfortunately no cannibalism was involved), “surgery breakfast” (as opposed to “sugary”), “He would throw around his money, his statues and his position” (as opposed to “status”), “taking a long waif of the cooking meat.” (as opposed to “whiff”), all of this culminating in this sentence that needs be highlighted:
“What are the ingeminates?”
‘Ingeniminates’ is supposed to be ‘ingredients’. Context alone allowed me to decipher this one. Other oddities include repeatedly using the term “church serves” instead of “church services”; using “Jean motioned a crossover his chest" to describe a character doing the sign of the cross, thus combining the habit of either agglutinating words together or splitting them (“crest fallen”) without bothering to google. I was raised Catholic but I do not expect everyone to know their liturgical nomenclature but a quick search for ‘Catholic cross gesture’ immediately generated plenty of results, virtually all of which included the correct and widely used term.
It goes almost without saying but there are virtually no commas to speak of. The ones that do appear are sprinkled haphazardly and do more to disturb the flow than anything else. Each and every single one of the above mentioned elements would be bad enough on their own but together they conspire to create what is possibly the very worst piece of prose I ever encountered. To the point that issues that would normally be borderline amateurish, like replacing the characters’ names for descriptions, (“the blond man”, “the darker man”), get almost entirely lost in the sheer inanity of writing that would not be acceptable at a grade level.
Regarding the story proper, apart from being so hampered by overwhelming structural flaws, it suffers from plenty of problems. The setting of Old New Orleans is already rich with imagery and cultural diversity. The perspective of a mulatto hoodoo doctor added to the potential by allowing the novel to explore, even if only superficially, such themes as racism, social inequality and the still little known world of the African (and their descendants) community in the city. Even without putting into play sexuality issues, Root Work has so much to work with that it is a marvel how it managed to fail on virtually all fronts.
The romance between Pax, the title’s root doctor, and Jean, a rather fey and fidgety nobleman, is not well handled. For roughly 90% of the time Pax is profoundly annoyed at all that Jean does, Jean’s body language alone drives Pax insane; Jean himself is supposed to be innocent and lacking in self-confidence but he come across as bordering on the mentally handicapped. It is as if Pax realized he was in a m/m novel and two thirds into it decided it was time to reciprocate Jean’s advances because the blurb said so.
This brings me to the other coordinate of this novel, namely the mystery. Root Work is not just about budding love across racial boundaries, it is also about dark forces that lurk in the deepest recesses of the human psyche. The plot hinges on Pax trying to solve said mystery by tracking and stopping whoever is stealing the corpses of young children from the cemetery of Saint Louis.
Events that baffle the characters have such an obvious cause that I called it 91 pages in and decisions are made that are so utterly reckless that they veer into stupidity.
In all honesty, and perhaps for the very first time, I am at a loss to find any positive aspect. It reads like a text originally written in some other language that was then translated into English by someone who had a vague knowledge of the language. A simple spellcheck would have done this one wonders but there is so little effort put into it that no-one seemed to have gone to the trouble.
Had I paid money for this, I would have asked for a reimbursement. If the author truly expects this to be the first volume of a series then I suggest going back to square one, submitting it to a serious overhaul, employing beta readers and/or editors and taking classes in the English language. There are basic requirements to write anything whatsoever and this one does not even come close to clearing them.
August 16, 2018
A Joyfully Jay review.
DNF
I was only five pages in to Root Work before it became a chore to read this book rather than a pleasure, but I struggled in hopes of finding something redeemable. While voodoo is an interesting and under-explored facet of both religion and magic within the paranormal romance genre, this book and all its potential are not worth the time or the struggle it takes to read them. In my opinion, this book is not ready for publishing based purely on the author’s technical writing skill and comfort with the English language. At a little less than 30%, I simply gave up. There was no pleasure in struggling through this book.
In a self-published book, I have come to expect the occasional error. A typo, a missing comma, a hanging quotation mark. However, in this book there are at least two errors per page, oftentimes half a dozen or more, which made reading the book like a word search of mistakes. I found it extremely hard to focus on the plot or the characters because the writing was just so… I hate to say it, but bad. It has odd phrasing, bad phrasing, and confusing or incorrect word choices, such as a “hundred tombs lining a wall” instead of “tomes,” which did not conjure an image of leatherbound books as much as a great many small sepulchures.
Read Elizabeth’s review in its entirety here.
DNF
I was only five pages in to Root Work before it became a chore to read this book rather than a pleasure, but I struggled in hopes of finding something redeemable. While voodoo is an interesting and under-explored facet of both religion and magic within the paranormal romance genre, this book and all its potential are not worth the time or the struggle it takes to read them. In my opinion, this book is not ready for publishing based purely on the author’s technical writing skill and comfort with the English language. At a little less than 30%, I simply gave up. There was no pleasure in struggling through this book.
In a self-published book, I have come to expect the occasional error. A typo, a missing comma, a hanging quotation mark. However, in this book there are at least two errors per page, oftentimes half a dozen or more, which made reading the book like a word search of mistakes. I found it extremely hard to focus on the plot or the characters because the writing was just so… I hate to say it, but bad. It has odd phrasing, bad phrasing, and confusing or incorrect word choices, such as a “hundred tombs lining a wall” instead of “tomes,” which did not conjure an image of leatherbound books as much as a great many small sepulchures.
Read Elizabeth’s review in its entirety here.
July 26, 2018
I was given a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.
This was so difficult to write as I hate giving negative feedback but the author really needs to find a good editor and also reread what has been written.
All the problems associated with Root Work were summed up perfectly by Nocturnalux. There were so many examples of bad grammar, incorrect spelling, incorrect choice of words, incorrect use of tenses etc that I can't sum them up and I really don't want to waste my time going back over the story.
As far as the romance is concerned, it was unbelievable. One minute Pax tells us that he doesn't want to be known as a sodomite and then he and Jean are getting together.
The premise of the story was promising - that is why I asked to review it. The book fails miserably when it comes to execution.
If the author wishes to write a series involving these characters book 1 needs to be rewritten first.
This was so difficult to write as I hate giving negative feedback but the author really needs to find a good editor and also reread what has been written.
All the problems associated with Root Work were summed up perfectly by Nocturnalux. There were so many examples of bad grammar, incorrect spelling, incorrect choice of words, incorrect use of tenses etc that I can't sum them up and I really don't want to waste my time going back over the story.
As far as the romance is concerned, it was unbelievable. One minute Pax tells us that he doesn't want to be known as a sodomite and then he and Jean are getting together.
The premise of the story was promising - that is why I asked to review it. The book fails miserably when it comes to execution.
If the author wishes to write a series involving these characters book 1 needs to be rewritten first.
August 8, 2018
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
As an lover of m-m romance, a sucker for sexy stories and someone with greater than average interest in Creole culture, it should not have been hard to win a three star review from me. Throughout the first few chapters, I repeatedly reminded myself that this was an amateur novel and the author probably didn't have an editor. However, by the third chapter, the errors made reading almost unbearable. I'm not talking about a few typos, these errors are so glaring that I can only conclude that A.G. Wolf is just lazy.
Setting aside using "president" instead of "precedent," "rosses" instead of "roses," "American's" instead of "Americans,""form" instead of "from," and the half-dozen times "preform" was used instead of "perform," the writing was just bad. The way they spoke was anachronistic and awkward. For example, I don't it's appropriate to use the word "stakeout" (to be fair, the author wrote "stockout" so maybe I misinterpreted this sentence) or the phrase "collateral damage." Early on, there was also some past to present tense voice-shifting that was confusing. At other times, the words were combined in ways that made it unclear what was happening or why. Why did Jean's face twist into a sad expression or recognition? What exactly is "bitter fondness?" While I normally love liberally descriptive phrases, Wolf's use of descriptors veers into the realm of absurdity.
Even within the context of a good story, I find it very irritating and hacky when authors use descriptors instead of names or pronouns, e.g. "She looked at the man" vs "she looked at him" or "he yelled at the taller man," instead of "he yelled at Michael." Not only did the author GROSSLY abuse this particular pet peeve of mine, by and large, the descriptors used emphasized the racial differences between the two characters. At best this was amateurish and excessive, at worst, it was disrespectful. I don't know if Wolf identifies as a person of color, so, as a profoundly white girl, I won't presume that they have no understanding of the racial climate of this period and location, but it was just poorly done.
There were other attempts to draw attention to the topic of slavery and racism that seemed historically inaccurate, but the thing that really bothered me was the way that Pax "the tan man" was characterized as angry, bitter and damaged by the racism he experienced, while Jean "the blond man" was the rich, beautiful redeemer of the white race and healer of Pax's soul simply because he had the decency to treat people with basic respect.
On to the love story...
As is common with reluctant-lover stories, the shift happened far to abruptly. Much of the story is committed to expressing how much Pax hates Jean's submissiveness and innocence, but suddenly he's decided that he's actually attracted to him and they should have sex. Even more surprising, it's shy, timid Jean that instigates their coupling.
I have to give props to Wolf for trying for some character development with Jean, having him find some courage and assertiveness, but it isn't a believable transition. This parallels the sudden discovery that Jean actually has some magical prowess during a dramatic battle scene where "the rich white man" saves the "poor biracial man" from "the witch." I don't even see such an effor with Pax. His greatest transition is accepting his sexuality, but the fact that this happens in a few paragraphs means it's not so much character development as a plot-crowbar. I'm tempted, just for charity's sake, to call these characters "complex," but the reality is they're just having identity crises.
About the mystery...
Like all the other attributes of this story, the mystery is underdone. The investigation was alarmingly short and generously lubricated by the useful introduction of absurd "hoodoo" spells and brilliant deductions, but I don't find this much more egregious than a few other paranormal romance (what genre would this be?), or perhaps it was just the least annoying aspect of the novel.
I would give the author a C if this was a summer creative writing course for 13-year-olds.
As an lover of m-m romance, a sucker for sexy stories and someone with greater than average interest in Creole culture, it should not have been hard to win a three star review from me. Throughout the first few chapters, I repeatedly reminded myself that this was an amateur novel and the author probably didn't have an editor. However, by the third chapter, the errors made reading almost unbearable. I'm not talking about a few typos, these errors are so glaring that I can only conclude that A.G. Wolf is just lazy.
Setting aside using "president" instead of "precedent," "rosses" instead of "roses," "American's" instead of "Americans,""form" instead of "from," and the half-dozen times "preform" was used instead of "perform," the writing was just bad. The way they spoke was anachronistic and awkward. For example, I don't it's appropriate to use the word "stakeout" (to be fair, the author wrote "stockout" so maybe I misinterpreted this sentence) or the phrase "collateral damage." Early on, there was also some past to present tense voice-shifting that was confusing. At other times, the words were combined in ways that made it unclear what was happening or why. Why did Jean's face twist into a sad expression or recognition? What exactly is "bitter fondness?" While I normally love liberally descriptive phrases, Wolf's use of descriptors veers into the realm of absurdity.
Even within the context of a good story, I find it very irritating and hacky when authors use descriptors instead of names or pronouns, e.g. "She looked at the man" vs "she looked at him" or "he yelled at the taller man," instead of "he yelled at Michael." Not only did the author GROSSLY abuse this particular pet peeve of mine, by and large, the descriptors used emphasized the racial differences between the two characters. At best this was amateurish and excessive, at worst, it was disrespectful. I don't know if Wolf identifies as a person of color, so, as a profoundly white girl, I won't presume that they have no understanding of the racial climate of this period and location, but it was just poorly done.
There were other attempts to draw attention to the topic of slavery and racism that seemed historically inaccurate, but the thing that really bothered me was the way that Pax "the tan man" was characterized as angry, bitter and damaged by the racism he experienced, while Jean "the blond man" was the rich, beautiful redeemer of the white race and healer of Pax's soul simply because he had the decency to treat people with basic respect.
On to the love story...
As is common with reluctant-lover stories, the shift happened far to abruptly. Much of the story is committed to expressing how much Pax hates Jean's submissiveness and innocence, but suddenly he's decided that he's actually attracted to him and they should have sex. Even more surprising, it's shy, timid Jean that instigates their coupling.
I have to give props to Wolf for trying for some character development with Jean, having him find some courage and assertiveness, but it isn't a believable transition. This parallels the sudden discovery that Jean actually has some magical prowess during a dramatic battle scene where "the rich white man" saves the "poor biracial man" from "the witch." I don't even see such an effor with Pax. His greatest transition is accepting his sexuality, but the fact that this happens in a few paragraphs means it's not so much character development as a plot-crowbar. I'm tempted, just for charity's sake, to call these characters "complex," but the reality is they're just having identity crises.
About the mystery...
Like all the other attributes of this story, the mystery is underdone. The investigation was alarmingly short and generously lubricated by the useful introduction of absurd "hoodoo" spells and brilliant deductions, but I don't find this much more egregious than a few other paranormal romance (what genre would this be?), or perhaps it was just the least annoying aspect of the novel.
I would give the author a C if this was a summer creative writing course for 13-year-olds.
Read
August 30, 2018A free copy of the book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
As other reviewers have said, this book has an interesting setting and some potentially cool ideas, but it really doesn't feel like it was ready for publication. There were an incredible number of spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors which at times really made it hard to understand what the author was trying to say.
I hate super naive characters in general, but Jean was a particularly awful example of this - except, of course, for his completely out-of-character confidence when it came to sex. The romance between he and Pax needed far more development. While I did think that the author created a believable catalyst for the two of them to get together, I found the transition too abrupt.
I would have liked to have seen MUCH more of Madame Avoyelle and a much more extensive grounding in the magical framework or philosophy under which Pax was working. I had very little grasp of his system, so I never had any idea what he could or could not do, nor any feel for how difficult any of it might have been for him, which took away from the sense of danger or threat.
And Pax's approach to solving the central mystery often didn't make much sense to me (e.g. ).
In my opinion, this book needs some serious revisions in order to live up to the potential of its premise.
As other reviewers have said, this book has an interesting setting and some potentially cool ideas, but it really doesn't feel like it was ready for publication. There were an incredible number of spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors which at times really made it hard to understand what the author was trying to say.
I hate super naive characters in general, but Jean was a particularly awful example of this - except, of course, for his completely out-of-character confidence when it came to sex. The romance between he and Pax needed far more development. While I did think that the author created a believable catalyst for the two of them to get together, I found the transition too abrupt.
I would have liked to have seen MUCH more of Madame Avoyelle and a much more extensive grounding in the magical framework or philosophy under which Pax was working. I had very little grasp of his system, so I never had any idea what he could or could not do, nor any feel for how difficult any of it might have been for him, which took away from the sense of danger or threat.
And Pax's approach to solving the central mystery often didn't make much sense to me (e.g. ).
In my opinion, this book needs some serious revisions in order to live up to the potential of its premise.
Read
July 18, 2018*DNF*
(36%)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews