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The Lethal Heptagon [Nika]

Book: The Lethal Heptagon
Author: PeterDH2 
Reviewer: Nikachu22
Chapters read: 7

Main focus: Character development and credibility, plot, story, and dialogue flow, enjoyment, and suspense generation.

Prologue:
Thoughts on the prologue. It started strong. Emotions were there, the details were correct and everything seemed to flow together. I enjoyed reading it as it allowed me to picture what was transpiring. There was a lovely romantic undertone between the characters. At some point, however, I think the writing style suddenly changed and everything turned from having emotion and flare to just describing what was happening. Things started to move rather quickly without the necessary build-up.

All of the much-needed emotion/description left. In character struggle, emotion/description is needed most. That is where the characters are made to express themselves.

Also, as far as the plot goes, I can understand the prologue has drama going on, but where is the hook? What does it set us up for for the rest of the story? It is supposed to tell us in a nutshell what we will be dealing with. What funky plot twists are needed at the beginning to draw us in?

What is going on and what makes this story interesting?

We learn early on that someone/some group is doing something foul. You mention children and how these two have scoured the city to find the location. I get that it is drama-filled, but to keep readers intrigued, we will need more from their backgrounds.

It's best to describe a little about what they do. What organization they're part of or something about the bad guys? Maybe slide a few sentences in that will help support the characters. What you want to focus on is allowing us as readers to root for them in whatever they're going through. 

We will need as much as possible of that in the first chapter to hook us in. 

The prologue ends with him getting shot. That is a great way to leave a cliffhanger and keep readers invested, but you also want that investment to happen earlier on as well. The emotion during him getting shot doesn't have the much-needed description to feel what struggle the characters are going through.

Only a few pointers I'd suggest for the prologue. Add more emotion like in the beginning of the chapter. Focus on telling us readers who/what these groups are/who or what the main characters are. Get a good hook early on in the prologue to make us go... oh wow, and allow the rest of the prologue to flow naturally.

Chapters 1-6 Review:
The first chapter is great actually. The flow is smooth and you use great description to allow us readers to visualize as well as feel him as he seems to be in a lot of distress. The usage of vocabulary and writing style which has now switched to first person at first is confusing. Since the prologue is written in third, but either way... It wasn't a bad switch once I got used to it. I like that he's narrating his pain. To use a word like detonate was clever. A detonating heart out of pure anxiety. Sounds interesting. 

I do notice you put a lot of commas which makes sentences never-ending. A lot of these sentences can be stand-alone pieces. You don't need commas. Periods will be fine.

I kept looking through the depths of my mind, searching in a sea of knowledge and although one or another idea went to my head, nothing was intended to work, unless I lived in a world of fantasy or science fiction.

Wordplay can support the usage of never-ending commas.

 I kept looking through the depths of my mind. I searched a sea of knowledge and although one or another idea went to my head, nothing was intended to work. If only I lived in a world of fantasy or science fiction.