Healers: Secrets of the Academy — An Editorial Commentary

There are several things I need to state before properly getting into the meat of this half-breed of a review and editorial commentary. Extrinsic factors to the book that explain why I didn't like it, though there are a fair amount of intrinsic factors as well.

1. The Time Factor

In general, we as booktubers are quite busy people and we have to be very selective with our time. That is just a fact.

It is perhaps because of this that the majority of reviews are primordially positive, something that applies to my channel as well.

I have curated my taste during the time I have been reading. Through reviews, endorsements of authors I know and love and recommendations from trusted people that are familiar with my interests, there is a very high chance I am going to enjoy the book I pick up.

2. Accessing the book

The way I accessed this book is very different.

I was doom-scrolling through twitter, as you do, and I came across a tweet from Breakeven Books looking for booktubers to promote Healers: Secrets of the Academy.

I had been wanting to review self-published books for a while and I thought, "This can kill two birds with one stone: getting my work out there and reviewing something slightly different from the norm"

3. Middle Fantasy's Review

By happenstance I found out that Zack from the Middle Fantasy channel had a review of this precise book and I found myself nodding along, agreeing with most of the things he said. So, instead of me mirroring his video I recommend go watch his review (and hell, why not subbing to him?).

4. Reviewer spaces

Last thing I wanted to address is a comment on the reviewer spaces and author interactions in them.

I believe everyone is free to access any sort of environment at their own peril and engage in civil discussion if necessary. I would actually like L.L. Smith, author of the book, to watch the video and read this here post.

My intention is to steer clear of bashing and negative destructive criticism. I believe you can learn something from any book, I think this one offers some learning points that are very valuable for anyone looking to self-publish.

An Editorial Commentary

First things first, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that all the knowledge I possess about self-publishing is because of personal interest, I want to self-publish in the future and I engage actively in the bookish community, not actively self-publishing per se.

Smith has actually managed to finish a book, something I cannot say for myself. However, from being an avid reader my whole life and reviewing books in my free time I can identify things to work on.

Nevertheless, I believe this book, though finished, is still in its immaturity.

The positives

• I need to reiterate. Finishing a book is no small feat, so you should really pat yourself in the back. From all the people that start writing a novel, only a small proportion actually finish (don't get me started on moving on to publishing).

• I like the choice of adding a calendar at the beginning of the book and then referencing the dates throughout the story, as well as including updated versions of said calendar. Since the book takes place in an academy, I'm sure that anyone that is or has been a student will know how close an eye we keep on calendars, on bank holidays, assignments and the like. I also like that you took the time to develop your own months and years.

• The book starts with a classroom setting, which I think can be a really good way of including worldbuilding and exposition without being too overbearing. Having a teacher or other students explaining certain things might weave into the narrative better than straight infodumping.

• The setting is an interesting one, we can see some complexity because there are three different schools within the academy and the students going to each school have different abilities. It's a good concept.

• I like the war-games vibes from the training sessions to defeat the Shadow Knights, I can see there is some potential there to thrill the reader.

• You added some intrigue with the faculty of the Academy, the conflict not solely focused on the students which offers some variety. That's good.

Constructive criticisms

Now, I would like to move on some constructive criticism that I humbly think can improve this novel or any other novels you are planning for the future if you were to take them on board.

Character

I believe the female perspectives and descriptions need the most improving.

Just like Zack said, the descriptions are way off, only focusing on the physical attributes that a straight teenage boy with a very narrow vision and a lot of hormonal charge would do.

At least personally, characterisation is one of the hardest parts of a book to write, and something that helps for me is stepping back from the narrative, taking a scrap paper (or opening a blank page in whatever software you are using) and trying to figure out exactly who this character is before introducing them in the story.

I have come to experience it is much more difficult to figure out a character as your story develops rather than figuring it before and then implementing small changes as you go along.

Another piece of advice would be to limit the amount of characters and focus on one or two POV characters.

Patrick Rothfuss has something to say about this in this Q&A (go to minute 22.43 if you want that specific thing but he’s quite an entertaining man, so I would recommend watching the whole thing if you are bored!)

I would recommend doing just that that. Take it from someone that had 7 POVs in his first project and cut it down to 2 main ones in his practice novel.

Trust me, it really, really helps.

Plot

Likely the most solid aspect of the story.

It can be summarised in one or two lines: students from across different academies with sundry individual abilities train together to fight Shadow Knights, empty armoured evil entities from an evil overlord.

Not a revolutionary concept in fantasy, but nothing really is nowadays.

The book is not really reliant on the plot as much as it should be from my point of view. Having a tight plot and focusing on it is easier than crafting compelling characters.

Worldbuilding

I mentioned the classroom environment is a good way to deliver exposition, but unfortunately it doesn't quite land in this book. It's not weaved with the narrative.

My advice is very similar to characterisation. You don't need to pull a Tolkien and spend years worldbuidling, but having a solid foundation of your world, the background lore and the social and cultural implications will aid greatly in the process.

Packaging

• The prose is quite clunky and the choice of language is not ideal for a fantasy novel. The names of the characters are quite colloquial (Hunter, or Melody and Reggie). That is coupled with the use of words like "yo", or "y'all". It grinds, and pulls you out of the story right away.

• I am not aware of the amount of money the author had in his budget for this book but I think it would reach a wider audience and be considerably better with the following:

  • A professional cover by an artist that is specialised in fantasy (unfortunately the expression "Don't judge a book by its cover" is very wrong since that is precisely what we do. It is the cover that first attracts our attention).

  • If you look at the formatting of the book, it's far from ideal. The size of the words is quite small, the separation between lines is suboptimal, the margins are not good. The chapter titles... Well, they look like they are taken straight from a word document in a very early draft. I recommend software like Vellum to make the interior of your book look more professional.

  • I think the work would have benefited massively from a couple rounds of professional editors, copyeditors, proofreaders, developmental editors and beta readers.

Final thoughts

All in all, I honestly applaud anyone that manages to finish a book yet I believe Healers: Secrets of the Academy is in its initial stages and would greatly benefit from revisions, cutting and extensive editing.

As always, if you have reached the end of this post I thank you profusely and I hope to see you in the next one!