A Writer’s Digest judge just gave The Black Lens an excellent review in its 24th Annual Self-Published Book Awards contest.
While The Black Lens did not win the contest, the book received some of the highest rankings possible for the following categories (1 means “needs improvement” and 5 means “outstanding”):
- Structure, Organization, and Pacing: 5
- Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar: 5
- Production Quality and Cover Design: 4
- Plot and Story Appeal: 4
- Character Appeal and Development: 5
- Voice and Writing Style: 5
Here’s the review: “The Black Lens is a small-town thriller, following Zoey, a young woman trapped in an abusive home, who is coerced into a sex ring after she and her mentally disabled sister are slipped date rape drugs into their drinks at a party and photographed in sexually explicit positions. Determined to protect her sister and expose the men at the heart of the ring, she teams up with a photojournalist, Aidan, in an effort to free herself and her sister from the nightmare that she’s encountered.
The book gets off to a strong start, with an anxious and skin-crawling account of the party that Zoey attends with her sister, and only gets more tense from there. This reader finds this kind of tension uncomfortable, especially as it deals with the sexual exploitation of teenage girls, one of whom is mentally disabled, but the book does a very good job laying out how this kind of crime can happen in modern days with modern technology. Zoey is a likable and compelling character, and her pluck and determination in the face of the horrors she is dealt are admirable.”
To read more reviews of The Black Lens, please visit the Reviews page or go to Amazon.