Sapphire's Review Store 4.0

Review by Faye: The Great Escape

Title: The Great Escape

Author: Apple_Brooklyn

Reviewer: Fayesther

Blurb: 4/5

The structure of your blurb works well. I noticed some grammatical errors here and there. For you used "it's" as a possessive pronoun, which should be written as "its". I like a blurb that is short and that asks leading questions and yours does that. You also included an excerpt, which is a good idea for it shows your potential reader your writing style as well as sharing more information to hook them in.

Grammar: 3/5

The majority of your writing in this book was very well done grammatically – especially for somebody who has English as their second language! Great work.

However, I did notice a few hiccups here and there. I pinpointed a few as I read. These blunders can be difficult to spot for a non-native speaker and they were not recurring mistakes, just typing mishaps and instances where the exceptions to rules within English grammar caused you to trip up. Some that I pinpointed, I am aware, are just overlooked typos also.

There were times where you accidentally swapped the tense and used incorrect punctuation in speech. But again these errors were few and far between.

I hope you don't mind that I commented corrections as I read. Sometimes, I find it easier to do so when asked to focus on grammar.

Writing Style: 4/5

Your writing style is engaging and fun. I enjoyed the action sequences immensely, you weaved together the characters' movements, their emotions and the magical aspects of the world wonderfully!

You also included brilliant gems of imagery throughout the chapters you have written so far. This helped paint a vivid picture of the fantastical world that your story takes place in inside my mind. I especially loved the scene where Lady Kiara fought the monster with the tentacles, it was exciting and full of fascinating ideas that were described incredibly well.

You brought a good balance of drama, horror and humour within your story bringing moments to life. I really liked how some characters had aside thoughts. The use of italics to get across more urgent thoughts was very effective. Also singling out words on their own line really helped to put across the desperation that characters' felt in certain scenes.

You have a consistent voice throughout your story and you managed to stay true to the time period that it is set in all the way through. By focusing on how the characters and the narrator worded their thoughts. This is not always the easiest thing to accomplish in writing. So I must give credit to where it's due!

My only issue within this section is that I found some chapters here and there were structured in a confusing way. Changing the perspective of the story the amount of times that you did caused me to lose track at times.

Characterisation: 3/5

Within this story you brought great moments of character exposition that brought the individuals to life. However, these moments did come and go. I believe that changing the perspective of the narration as soon as you did caused a ripple effect on your character development. I found at the start of the story I was being told too much information about too many people at once and I found it difficult to differentiate character traits at times.

That being said, you did bring fabulous ideas to your characters Ada and Kiara that I did manage to pick up.

Ada was a very interesting individual. A poor, human maid, who is unfortunate, nothing seemed to go right for her. Danger looms around her. I like her habit to repeat advice to herself within her inner-monologue. She is smart , I loved that she pretended to be illiterate to protect her true identity – what a fascinating idea. I also like that she remembers clearly nuggets of advice from her grandmother – a gorgeous touch!

Kiara at first came across as rich and spoilt. Out of touch with the real world. However, you made her more complex than that! She is privileged, however not mean with it. She shows empathy towards Lea and tries to cheer her up when she's distressed. She is also wild and adventurous, which makes her an interesting character to read about. This also makes for a good contrast to Lea, who is more sensible than she is and also to Edith who is a gentleman – the small snippet of interaction I've seen with him made him look like such a nice, yet posh guy.

Plot: 3/5

At the start of the story I found that Ada's and Lady Kiara's situations and personalities worked as a good contrast. I found Ada's story especially intriguing.

The world that you built up within your story had so much folklore background to get through. With vampires, werewolves, witches and monsters. There were times where I found that the world building information clashed and details got lost. I believe it would've been beneficial for your story if you developed one idea at a time. This point also can be said about character back stories. I would've found it easier to connect with each of these characters if you took a more focused approach within their development. For instance, you could have told the story completely from Lady Kiara's perspective (not necessarily first person, I'd like to quickly add) then introduce Ada later as a mysterious being and gradually building up on her back story as if the reader is discovering her at the same time as Lady Kiara. This is just a suggestion, which would've helped me stay on track of all of your incredible ideas.

Now, the ideas you brought to your plot made for some exciting scenes within your story! I loved how you married both the historical aspects of the world (such as witch trials and various traditions of class) to the fantasy aspects that you described so vividly. The vampire folklore was interesting to read about.

You brought great moments of character exposition through sharing memories of characters' childhood and other flashbacks; these were snippets that broke up scenes nicely. An effective way to communicate personal information of characters and explanations of character bonds.

OVERALL SCORE: 17/25

A story with great potential. Full of fantastic ideas that are described in a beautiful way. There were moments where you chose your words perfectly. You had no recurring grammatical errors just some mishaps here and there that I pointed out for you as I read. Your story was about such a complicated world, and I understand that, as a writer, you may have wanted to get as much information across as soon as you could. However, I think it would benefit your story if you took a more gradual approach. I loved Lady Kiara and Lea's friendship, I'm a sucker for stories of different classes working together in harmony. You included a lot of interesting and relatable aspects that were so much fun to read about.

Thank you so much for asking me to review this fantastic story. I hope you found my feedback helpful.