The Sunflower Awards 3.0

Vampire/Werewolf Results

Time for the results! Without further ado, here they are for Vampire/Werewolf/Supernatural! Thank you, eliza-lou, for your hard work in these awards. Contestants, please check out their shout-out chapter—it has their username in the chapter title—if you haven't done so already. They deserve some appreciation :).

If you did not win, meaning you are not in this chapter, we will PM you ASAP with your results. If you do not receive your results, you were probably disqualified, but give us some time to send results.

🌻

Genre Results

🌻Third Place🌻

Username - Measuredmarlin5
Book Title - Drake
Score - 99/100
Review -

TITLE:I like the name as the title. Drake is Lyn's object of focus, so it fits perfectly to have the book named after him. 

BLURB:The rule of thumb for summaries is to hit: your main character(s), the inciting incident (or hint at it), your MC's objective, and the stakes. You also want to write this as succinct as possible. And you do just that.— Main Characters? Lyn, an immortal gypsy. (And Drake.)— Inciting Incident? Meeting Drake again after 30 years of being apart.— Objective? To find answers to this vendetta and fight alongside Drake in this hidden war.— The Stakes? Bloodshed.Really nice work here. We have an understanding of the world we're stepping into, the character's goals, and the journey that lies ahead of them.

COVER:This cover is definitely unique - but I think that's a great thing. There's no conventional imagery from this genre used here (blood, someone shape-shifting, hot half-naked bodies, etc). But the image is clear, as is the title and author's name. I think clean and simple works. 

PLOT:In my opinion, the biggest reasons why your plot shines is because of its originality and complexity in world-building. This world of fantastical lore/mythology within our real world in different countries is so spectacularly handled. The stakes for your characters feel real and dire, and the story sets itself up to have twists, turns, betrayal, heartbreak, bloodshed, love, and maybe even redemption. I don't think I can say much else except that this is really well done, and a story that makes you want to read further. 

ORIGINALITY:10/10 marks for creativity. You've married decades of the real world and its wars, with the fantastical elements of werewolves, vampires, and other mythology. Seriously, this read was so fun to dive into, and such a different approach to this genre(s). 

GRAMMAR:I have nothing to say here. Very clean, well organized, and easy to follow text! 

WRITING STYLE:You have such a balanced way of story-telling. There are enough descriptions to set the scene, without feeling heavy-handed, and the more that are sprinkled in within action sequences, help as a reader to visualize what's going on. There's no telling going on (in reference to showing vs telling), and the believability in the chaos and turmoil these characters are going through, from the beginning, is sharp and clear. You've given this story so much depth, but I knew that just from the first 10-15 chapters, I'd only scratched the surface.My one comment is going to be about the beginning chapters (specifically Ch1-6). To be honest, I was a little lost while reading these. Not in the sense of the action sequences being unclear, or losing track of what was happening, but I didn't have the best grasp of when we were in the present vs the past or a flashback. Throughout each of these chapters we have Kalen in Ch2 who's having flashbacks, Lyn rethinking memories at the beginning of Ch3, and then Drake in Ch4 because it starts in the evening time when just moments ago in Ch3 it was the afternoon? This is was my only source of confusion, and this might just be my opinion, but I'd encourage clarifying this. Whether that's through an additional space between paragraphs when jumping through time, or a line (———) to signify we've jumped times, I think something to help the reader understand those jumps would be very helpful. When we got to Ch7, and I saw "Lyn 1981" and then the first several paragraphs immediately explained everything that had happened so far, I thought it was very well done, AND didn't feel like an info dump. For a consistency note, I honestly would encourage you to put time stamps in the beginning chapters (or at least Ch2 to 6). I think that alone might help a lot with clarifying any time jump confusion because of the fact that we're going from far in the past, to the past, and then in the present (1981) in Ch7. That might just be me, but I do think it would just help to make sure the reader has some context getting thrust into those loaded chapters in the beginning of the story. Not knowing everything right away is a great thing, but giving the reader a hand in at least knowing how to even place all the info is always helpful.