Title: When Night Comes
Chapter Reviewed: Creation, Prologue, 1, 2
Author: xohrats
Blurb:
I don't like it. I especially don't get the 'girl will defy the seasons'. What season? Nothing in the blurb tells me what the story is going to be about. I prefer longer blurbs. Which actually tell me what I can find in the book. I'll/d never buy a book with a vague blurb.
Title:
When Night Comes.
Not a fan of it. I have no explanation why. It just doesn't give me any sense of high fantasy. It sounds like Mystery.
Cover:
It's okay. General, and not so fantasy. It doesn't attract me to read your book in any way though.
Miscellaneous:
In the introduction, you have a mention of WARNING. I'm not a fan of warning. I don't think you need to warn someone on something you've tagged with or if you've tagged the book as Mature. It's some kind of a mini spoiler for the book. You don't see G.R.R.M warns people of how many sex and blood in GOT. WARNING is more of a stylistic choice I guess.
What I love is, the map. High fantasy with a map is peanut butter and jelly. I know someone is serious about their story when they draw maps.
Chapter CREATION.
I reviewed 'creation', because it is a literary chapter, and it's quite long. The first thing that caught my attention in the 1st para is the adjectives 'weakly' and 'murky'. It immediately attenuates the impact of the intro. You could do without both.
'She felt something odd...'
This line is too vague. You should immediately describe the feeling.
You have an echo of 'she didn't know why', and it doesn't read good. You also have an echo of 'odd'. I suggest you refrain from using 'odd' to describe something, unless it's in a dialogue. It's just me though XD
I never get it when someone describes something as 'sweetly'. Does it mean soft? Endearing? Like when you describe '...she felt something warm wrap around her body, sweetly kissing her skin.' I understand if someone sounds sweet.
'The girl blinked her eyes, slowly adjusting to the color around her.' You don't need the 'her eyes'. And I don't think 'color' sounds great. Maybe just say 'surrounding' or 'light'? As later, you don't really describe color. You described things.
Another description I don't get. 'Apollo laughed, honey dripping from his youthful tongue'. What does that mean? That his laugh sounds sweet?
'...so clear that it numbed her bones'. Why? What's the relationship between clear and bones?
I especially love this sentence onward: Its golden color slowly seeped into her skin...' The imagery is very strong. So good!
Clean and pristine. I suggest you choose one. Pristine will do as the adjective is stronger than the other.
I'm not familiar with Greek mythology, so take this with a grain of salt. I feel like you're introducing a whole lot of characters, well, to be exact, names. We have Apollo, Prometheus, Titan, Oracle (well I know Oracle has something to do with seer (?)), Queen Polyxo, Troy. Now, it might not weight much to the readers who are familiar with the names, but I need to ignore the fact that I don't know the majority of the names and hoping I could get it later.
Chapter PROLOGUE
You gave a nice opening. Your opening directly shares the setting. The description is good, though I found it weird to describe the pillars as tree trunks. Tall and thick is sufficient IMO.
I thought after the 3rd POV intro, the Prologue is in 3rd POV too. But no, it's in 1st. But the intro para seems like 3rd POV when described the way you did. Maybe you could shift the second paragraph with the 1st? I don't know. It's not a big deal, but it gave me a false sense of POV.
I enjoyed the description in this chapter. You had me at 'blue blood'. Not sure why it's blue and not red, nevertheless, I loved it.
Here, you introduced her personality with us. Directly, we know that she's a complicated character. She's full of hatred and lies, that for sure. So great job!
Chapter 1:
I read the comments for the first paragraph. Readers loved it. But sorry, I don't like the description. You have two sets of em dashes back to back and it's not pleasing for me. And your description is a bit extra.
'I sprinted closer to' could be 'I sprinted to/toward'.
'Which ran through Beron like a divider, separating...' could easily be 'Which ran along Beron, separating...'
'...where slums ravaged the poverty-stricken land' could easily be '...where slums ravaged the land'. Slum is adequate to give an imaginary of a poverty-stricken land.
Somewhere, you write a '...our red-rimmed eyes'. It's a POV shift. She couldn't possibly see her red eyes unless there's a mirror there.
'I did not move, looking at the...' Maybe 'I did not move as I looked at...'
I love the part where you describe how she looks so much like her mother that people could easily know where she came from. Indirectly, we know she's as stunning as her mother.
'The rest of the boys had forgot...' This part also has a small shift in POV. Maybe you could word it with 'seemed' because, well, obviously she doesn't know what they feel.
I think you have a weird use of 'numb'. Here, you wrote:...'my lips numb with sorrow.'
I get what you're trying to say, but 'numb' is an overused adjective/verb to describe a 'non'feeling. You could leave it, but you could also think of something better.
'I looked at Rodian, staring into his ivory eyes' could easily be 'I stared...'
The ending line, though it sounded goodd, it also sounded a bit over the top. I'm not sure. Its the 1st POV. She can say whatever she wants, but 'I had finally set myself free' is a bit of an exaggeration. She doesn't know what's waiting for her, or if her appearance will work for sure. Maybe something that sounds more like a hope than a statement would with better.
However, I like the backstory of the mother and the Lord. It sets the theme of the story right away. She's going for a revenge. A revenge toward her own father who doesn't even know she exists. With the two half sisters, this sounds like Cinderella, but the twist of it. She's the Cinderella, but she's the one having her revenge.
Chapter 2:
The intro actually works very well, but at the same time, it feels too explanatory. I'm 50/50 here. If readers love it, keep it that way. If you ask me, I'll suggest you to add an intro clause. I like your third paragraph. If it were me, I'll rephrase the third paragraph and switch the place to first.
Again, your readers seem to love it. Most of the time, I have a problem agreeing with what readers found good. So it might be just me.
When I read the first paragraph after the page break, I was immediately thrown out of the flow. Why is Rodian there in her room? Maybe I am sleepy now, but I'm not sure what's happening. Where are they and where are the servant? In the same room?
Further down, I loved the description: 'Dust gathered in my mouth, but I savoured each bite.' The description is so strong, it reflects her personality!
The paragraph: Perhaps this was the fairies' curse... It feels a bit redundant as you've told us several times on their beauty and lifespan. ' We exchanged destruction for time and lies for beauty' is the better way to not make it redundant.
You use revere and respect together. I suggest you keep the stronger verb, which is revere.
I'm quite confused with the line:...'the Oracle traveling to the prophecy...'
You have two of this narration. I'm not sure what both means. Does it mean the prophecy is a place? Not a person? Then farther below, I understand that it's a person. But the wording 'traveling to the prophecy' is a bit off.
Throughout the chapter, I was actually quite confused on why is Rodian there in the servant's quarter with her. Yes, of course he followed her when she first came to the place, but what is he? A servant too? He lives in the same quarters as young girls? It's something minor, but maybe mentioning about him a bit will help.
The prophecy really intrigued me. I'm wondering what exactly is going to happen and who is the Oracle. Nice job there.
CHARACTER:
I believe you've done a great job with Freyja's character. She seems strong, and heartless. Yet she keeps things inside her.
The fighting in the Arena is written brilliantly. Not so heavy, not so descriptive. The amount of description matches the action. There are tiny parts here and there which I felt like 'Meh'. Like the part when she towers over men and boys in strength, courage, and deceit. Really? Boys, maybe. But men? The only way for that to be possible is if they're humans. Please tell me they're humans.
Frejya is confusing, but good confusing. I can't read her that we'll. She sounds like a good person at first, but later, she sounds conceited. But maybe that's due to her revenge, becoming heartless as the time goes by.
OVERALL:
I don't know why you need the creation chapter AND the prologue. It's okay to have them, but by the time I reach chapter 2, I don't remember what's in the two chapters already. I believe any explanation on the characters/plot should be written in the actual chapters. Prologue is not an actual chapter IMO (well, not prologue per se, but the creation chapter) and you explained things in creation. And there are already so many characters mentioned in it that I got so confused.
Now, you seem like you have a great descriptive style. I remember sending my book over for a review when I was so new at this. At that time, my writing was...harrowing. Lol. (It's still not that good now), but I remember reading one of your works and thinking 'It's great if I could write like her'. And the reviewer actually pointed out your work as the example for descriptive work I could read to learn how to write better.
And yes, your writing is so much better than mine description-wise. You have a HUGE potential to be great at this. And after writing and reviewing for more than a year now, I could now say that there are some parts that I personally think you could improve. The description can be repetitive and indirect at times. It could be either if you want to be poetic, but having both makes it prolix. You tend to repeat the narration several times. I think I have pointed out most of them.
This review is more nitpicking than necessary XD You're a great writer. You should know the tiny things you could improve rather than me giving you a massive compliment. XD I think you just need to proofread your work and do minor editing to get the description right. They're great, most are fluid. You could do without taking my advice too, but I love hardworking writers, and I know you're one of them who wants the best they could have and give.
I hope this review helps. This is the first review I do in three months, so it might not be that good. Please feel free to contact me if you need more explanation.