Official Review: Absence of Subjection by Jessicca James

[shannonkate8]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Absence of Subjection" by Jessicca James.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Princess Cecilia knows she's a disappointment to her father. She isn't a boy after all. Now, at twenty-years-old, she's tired of being hidden away or forced into engagements only to help her hateful father's prospects. Unsurprisingly, however, her father, King Charles Lee Cheshire VI, has found a new match for her - King Arthur. She's determined that this is the break her and her maidservant, Agnes, need to run. So, she agrees to the marriage and plans her escape, only to find out the marriage is a sham, an elaborate ruse to get rid of her. To survive, she must trust the untrustable - a thief. Yet, somehow, she finds herself pulled to the man, and not just physically. Is she able to let her guards down enough to trust him? Can he truly help her get away from her father?

Absence of Subjection by Jessicca James had a great story filled with romance, adventure, and intrigue. I enjoyed that it didn't follow an expected storyline where the princess marries and finds out she truly loves her intended. Instead, she learns her father only wanted to release himself from the burden of her, one way or another. Her adventure was interesting and a little romance is always enjoyable. That said, this was really the only thing that kept me going.

Unfortunately, the book was filled with grammatical errors, some big and some small. Occasionally, the author used the incorrect word or misspelled words. Some words that are generally hyphenated were missing their hyphens and there were moments when punctuation was altogether missing. Errors I didn't count were generally related to commas. At times, the author would forget to include a comma and, at other times, the author would include some unnecessary ones. Even if I failed to mention issues I didn't count, I found at least one error on every page for the first few chapters.

In addition to grammatical errors, I found multiple run-on sentences in just the first few chapters. For instance, the author writes,

"Better to be alone than to marry a man who controls you, besides with Agnes, I will not be alone."

Here, the author decided to combine two sentences with a comma, yet it just doesn't make sense as a single sentence. Ideally, this could be made into separate sentences. While this was not the first or last instance, it is a good example to show that additional editing is necessary.

Lastly, I feel that I have to mention that the main character actually talks to the reader multiple times. For example, the main character says,

"No not THAT King Arthur. "

I was particularly confused with this statement. The author references the 'Kingdom of Cheshire' but no other identifiable aspects that give a true location or time period. The author may be referring to Cheshire, England, though I can't be certain. How, then, does the main character know of King Arthur? You can see that my thought process got a little away from the story, which shows my point - this brings the reader out of the book and story. The book does mainly read as though the author or main character is telling a story, but these statements are directly to the reader or as if the main character is writing in a journal, which doesn't appear to agree with the rest of the book.

I do not feel I can give this book more than 2 out of 4 stars. The storyline held the book together. I do not feel that this book was professionally edited and some aspects drew me out of the story numerous times. Personally, I would not recommend this book to others I know as some similar books were better written. That said, there may be some people who are looking for a new author in the other fiction and historical fiction genres that may be interested in giving it a try.

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Absence of Subjection
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