Jabberwocky Reviews

Book To Bellor by JessicaPowell481

"After Emily's father disappeared, her life was never the same, though being shipped off to boarding school wasn't that bad. She'd take anything to get away from her insane mother.

Now she was back at her family's estate to attend her mother's funeral the day before her 16th birthday. After spending years away, it's a strange, almost serene feeling being back.

Little did she know there was a great secret hidden in her father's library, once her refuge, now turns her world upside down and makes her question her whole life."

I think the blurb is fine, though check your grammar in the last sentence. It gets the story across. Watch for overworked language in that last sentence though: what sort of secret? What happens? I'm not saying the point is to spoil the plot and leave no surprises for the reader, but some secrets are more interesting than others: "her father is secretly the head of the Illuminati" and "her father has a passion for 19th century French poetry" are both secrets, but one will make us read past its reveal.

Going into the story itself, there are some sections where you give us too much information where the exposition feels forced. I think the line about choosing to kick the bucket in the dead of winter is fine as it stands. We don't need to know it's her birthday then, and we all know 16th birthdays are important without then introducing that her friends at Brickmore Academy told her this. We're being told this not because it's natural in the narrative or a natural thought for Emily to have, but because as the writer you know it's relevant later.

We spend more time building up the funeral than actually at the funeral, and I found myself afterward not knowing where the story was going or seeing a strong hook that would bridge into the next chapter. It just ends, and we don't know much more than we did by reading the blurb alone. As you write more of this, consider finding a way to have more of a hook at the end of the chapter; look to the other ONC stories I've reviewed for good examples of this.