I was offered this book in return for an honest review, and I leapt at it; the cover looks great, so kudos to whoever did the artwork.
‘Umbrate’ is an Urban Fantasy novel, set in a non-descript city in the modern day US, which nevertheless contains humans, elves, dwarves, and umbrals – a shadowy people who avoid sunlight. Our protagonist, Vanic, is a hard-bitten cop who is good at his job but a little bit racist towards umbrals.
If it sounds familiar that’s because, apart from the umbral people, it’s a bit derivative – think of the film ‘Bright’, if you’re not already – and unfortunately, this novel falls into the same trap which that film did; in attempting to blend a cop / detective drama, Fantasy, and a bit of social commentary, it ends up not getting deeply enough of any one of them. We don’t get to enjoy any real worldbuilding, and most if not all of the description is limited to how a very few characters look and what they’re wearing. It’s trying to cram in too much and simultaneously not including enough. I felt it lacked immersion, and found myself only really enjoying it at surface level.
I couldn’t see anywhere who the publisher is, but there was a very apparent lack of proofreading and copy editing; the prologue is totally unnecessary and adds nothing to the plot (I get the impression Jones had written some Fantasy for it before pivoting, and simply wanted to include it), Vanic’s injury at the start disappears pretty quickly, there are far too many typos for my liking, and punctuation has in many cases simply been ignored or misused. I even had to check if this was an advance reader copy. For this reason, I found reading ‘Umbrate’ tough going; I don’t mind working for my entertainment, but it shouldn’t be off-putting or a confused slog.
It’s such a shame, because apart from a couple of two-dimensional and stereotypical references to ‘the women’, the characterisation is actually pretty solid, and the plot is tried-and-tested. Perhaps Jones should have leaned more into the noir / ‘gumshoe’ potential of the novel and written it in the first person, so we could explore this world through Vanic’s somewhat flawed perspective.
For the sake of honesty, I didn’t finish it.
I don’t know if I’m being harsh as I really wanted to like ‘Umbrate’, and I would have said that what I’d read was OK. However, I have to mark it down a star for the lack of attention to detail.
As a blogger and reader of both independent and traditionally published work, I can’t stress enough how important it is for authors to have a sympathetic proofreader on-side.
Do let me know what you think in the comments.
2*
Cover blurb:
“Welcome to Dalton
Home to Humans, Dwarves, Elves and the shadowy Umbral Populace.
Detective Vanic Bradley works hard to keep the peace, coming down hard on the criminal underbelly of the city.
After putting his life on the line multiple times in recent weeks, all he wanted was a day off work to spend time with his son, and re-evaluate his place in the world – but forces beyond his control have other ideas.
For reasons unknown, he will find himself in a race against time as two hundred innocent citizens become collateral damage in a murderous plot centred around him.
Umbrate is the debut Urban Fantasy crime thriller by A.D Jones, that will offer up his take on a fantasy setting that should be welcomed by many readers, regardless of their genre tastes.”
‘Umbrate’ is available from Amazon here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Umbrate-D-Jones/dp/B0CK3X93R4
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