Title: The witness that wasn't there

Author: idongludoh
Reviewer: LadyInLostYearn

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SYNOPSIS

When Osa's life is permanently altered, she finds herself on the verge of death. In search of a way to survive, she ends up at the door of the man whose heart she broke.

Kuwin was sure he'd never see Osa again. When she turns up at his door step, a hair's breath away from death, he abandons everything to help her.

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Disclaimer: While I was reading your book with my best effort to stay unbiased, I might not catch your intended style for your characters, storyline, or purposes. By the end of the day, you control its narrative. I was just passing through, exploring around, and giving a deduction.

Overall review:

First of all, eye-catching title and cover. Great work, just hoping the snake could be incorporated better. The blurb, however, needs more. Not wrong to be vague with the story but more hints would hook in more readers. Like where does it take place? What things change her life? Why the old flame is important enough to be asked for help?

Also, there are a couple of mistakes. Doorstep and breadth away.

One glaring thing I noticed when I dived in was 'that'. You used the word for the title which I initially assumed it's a stylistic choice when I thought it could be 'The Witness who wasn't there'. But you used it a lot in the first chapter. Your chapters after the first have numerous 'that' and it's concerning considering this book is shorter than a novel. Chapter 4 alone has 34 'that'. It isn't wrong to use the word, helps even, but overusing it will create this tiring flow and take away the variety of your paragraphs and sentences. What I would suggest is to search for substitutes for half of them, as I did with the title. This way, the word would be less glaring. Or break the sentences with commas and periods. Or omit some. Example: 'Which meant that the Osekoni units had the same codes as the Usobo units. And if they did, then that meant that Izecha and Elhiji probably had the same codes.' It could be like this, 'This meant the Osekoni units had the same codes as the Usobo units. And if they did, Izecha and Elhiji probably had the same codes too.'

This leads me to another point. Repetition. Notice the sentence above. 'Had the same codes' was repeated. It's fine if it happened one time or twice, but these showed up too: 'The man who was doing the inspecting (inspection btw) was just checking that the gray, blank card with Jiki symbols on it was authentic. He was just checking that they had what they had.' 'Certain things, certain amenities...' 'Osa wondered why they'd all used the same codes. She wondered who'd made the units in the first place.' 'Which made sense' and 'It made sense that...' were used in the same paragraph for the same context.

Be noted, actions aren't dialogue tags. Like '"Please," she bowed to Osa.' should be '"Please." She bowed to Osa.' And heard in '"Jesus Christ," Osa heard a breathless voice...' is an action. '"so..." he smiled.' is just the same. There are more, so watch out for this mistake. There are other mistakes like '...electrical bulbs on the walls move past them, (as) the lower they went' and 'She'd gone to clans-blood schools, and received the best education...' (no need for comma). All in all, please re-read your book and check. Read more English books outside WP as well.

Now, the points you really wanted. For a short novel, your plot progresses wonderfully. Not too slow. Not too fast where it could leave me confused. I was able to pick up what's going on as the story brought me along within a reasonable pace. Another thing I liked was that you didn't infodump all at once, and you didn't bog down the dialogues and interactions when the info was sprinkled in between. The dialogues used for expositions were a good move. Wasn't overused. Some writers might complain that the story isn't clear from the get-go, but that's where the excitement of suspense or mystery is supposed to be. So yes, I'm a fan of this method. The characters weren't described to a tee and I'm honestly okay with it. Because their characteristics, necessary ones, were enough to carry the plot. Though the lovers' history and Vayi made me intrigued. I like Vayi already. Anyway, good luck with the contest.