Better than Before by insert_name_here
Reviewer: kalhixo
Kelsey returns to her hometown to resolve things; Sean reluctantly returns to visit his family. What would have been a short visit turns into something more when they meet each other and sparks fly!
I can see the effort put into the blurb. It achieves it's mission of telling readers the general plot of the story while not revealing too much! The cover, however, is not very pleasant. I think the color scheme needs work. But at least the title front is clear.
GENRE
The meet cute, or rather the lack-thereof fit my expectations of the genre perfectly!
CHARACTERS
Characters were well-introduced in my opinion. The first chapters were used effectively to showcase the characters' personality, their lives and what's giving them discomfort. That's key to character and plot arcs. They shouldn't be comfortable with their lives or else they won't feel the need to get out of their comfort zone when the inciting incident gives them the chance. Good job.
I think there needs to be a more overt difference in tone when each character narrates the story. A good rule of thumb is asking whether a reader can know whose point of view a paragraph is just from voice alone.
THEME
The main point in most romance novels is the tension and push and pull and the energy between characters. However, don't forget to portray each character's core and how it connects to the theme of the story. I found this lacking in the story.
WORLDBUILDING
I did think some of the descriptions of the settings were a bit generic. I'd like to clarify that there was no lack of quality or a problem with the quantity. Those were perfect. It's just that, the descriptions could have been switched around to a different characters' pov and it would have fit in just the same.
Adding other characters and dynamics to worldbuilding here (since this isn't a fantasy novel with goblins and floating islands), I liked how you showed a healthy loving relationship with Kelsey's friends and it was clear that she wanted something similar as well.
PLOT
The pace was very good in my opinion. There is a trend among writers to make the inciting incident happen way too early, which doesn't give readers enough time to know why the inciting incident matters. why does it disrupt the protagonists' life? how does it offer them a path towards their goal but also scares the life out of them because it's way out of their normal lifestyle? the inciting incident in this story was placed around the third and fourth chapter which gave me ample time to know the goals of the protagonists' and why they're not comfortable with their life so far.
WRITING STYLE
A few grammar problems are there but nothing that hinders reading comprehensiveness. Thoughts don't need to be in dialog tags. Some spelling errors here and there, some missed commas. I think cleaning these up would be good in your final edits.
the information and context you give for each character is a healthy amount and doesn't try to keep the reader dangling unnecessarily. However, one small problem is that there's a bit of info dumping when you convey all that information. There's a bit of redundancy and repetition as well. Try breaking up the information into manageable chunks and distribute them to when it matters most.
