Dreamland Review Archive

Ms. Fernsby's Cottage (A)

Title: Ms. Fernsby's Cottage

Author: peggors

Chapters Reviewed: 1-3

Cover: I believe you had a different cover before, but I don't remember it enough to critique. The one you currently have, I'm not a huge fan of. It doesn't blend well together and feels more like you just slapped some hands and a tiny house on it. For me, it doesn't fit the story well and it's a little hard to read the title. I would certainly suggest using a different font. It looks like you used two different fonts on the cover, but I'm not certain. From what I read, I think it would be cool if the cover had more of a focus on the cottage rather than these two hands you have.

Title: I'm on the fence when it comes to the title. While it's original, I feel like there's something more fitting for the story. This one seems so simple and more innocent, child-like when the story is anything but that. But if your intention is to be a bit misleading before coming into your creatively chaotic world, then I'd say it works well.

Blurb: The main issue I have with your blurb is how you're simply stating how scary and horrific it is. You don't really provide much of a hook by telling those things, but instead, giving us a small little taste of the horrors to come really gets us interested in the story. I'm also not a fan of the "click, boom" here and feel like it could be omitted. It's not bad as it is, but I think if you focused less on explaining how scary it is with the crime and torture, and gave us a little sneak peak of those horrors, it would be really interesting!

First Impression: Before diving into the story, I thought it would focus more on a fairytale like the blurb suggested, something resembling Hansel and Gretel with a twist? However, that's not at all what I got. Having your characters introduced by talking about eating poo-flavored ice cream is certainly different, so I give you credits for that. It's not something I expected to come across.

Chapter 1: This chapter starts off from Mark's perspective as he breaks the fourth wall for us while informing us about all the psychopaths that come to the pub. It has me wondering if a majority of these folks are just criminally insane. How did they even end up here? Did they escape an institute somewhere or is this like some kind of creepy cult? I found it rather interesting how everyone seemed to jump at the opportunity to kill the poor little girl after her encounter with Clarence. I suppose they just enjoy killing, regardless of who their victims are.

There were some places I feel could be cleared up a bit. For instance, when introduced to Paulie your narrator outright tells us that his wife and kid died last Sunday and then Paulie just repeats that same exact thing right after. It's a bit redundant and I feel like it could be more impactful if not stated to us, but instead Paulie comes up to one of the characters, maybe Mark even, and just tells him that his family's dead with a creepy smile on his face. It would really make the scene more eerie, like what's with that guy? Shouldn't he be mourning their deaths, or is he the one who killed them and is happy they're gone? It really makes you wonder about it.

If you're going for a more dramatized style of action, this might work well here, but when Angelica gets free from the guys, it felt rather forced and sheer unbelievable luck that she could trip a groan man by tromping on his foot. The fact that the knife flies through the air and stabs Clarence's hand was even more far-fetched. My personal suggestion would be to have Angelica be clever and steal the knife away from him and stab Clarence herself, throw him off guard, and make a run for it. She could distract them somehow and get it. Maybe she could even reach over for someone's drink and spill it to cause a commotion? Just something to stir up the already chaotic situation.