In My Opinion

On the Land, In the Sea by GiselleJaneZee

Full title: On The Land, In The Sea by GiselleJaneZee
Source: Gardenia: A Review Shop by -Chrysalis_Realm
Genre: Fantasy
Subgenre: Romance
Mature: N (mild swearing)
Status: Ongoing
English usage: British/Indian
Special note: LGBTQIAP+ (brief mention/joke about gay relationships only)
First impressions: 32/40
Digging deeper: 62/100
Final thoughts: Complete
Special note: Chapter nine was the last available chapter as of the publishing of this review.

Clicking the "External Link" button below the "Continue to next part" button will take you straight to the book.

Disclaimer: This is all my opinion. You, as the author, have the final say in what you want your story to be and how you want to write it.

*****

First impressions total: 32/40

Title: 10/10
I just read a retelling of The Little Mermaid yesterday. Will this be a mermaid tale? Guess I'll find out. 🙂

Blurb/synopsis: 7/10
The blurb is the way you finish hooking and reeling in a potential reader after you catch their attention with your title and cover, and when they click your book title, that pop-up box doesn't leave a lot of room. So, I'd recommend moving the first quote down below the blurb with the other quote.

As far as your actual blurb, it's short and sweet, and I like the parallelism, but you can enhance that symmetry to make the hook stronger. For the first line, I'd swap the comma after "creatures" out for a period. Then, for the new sentence that created, I'd change the second half to say "and the other rules the land." Bringing the next line up to follow immediately after that would work well, since there's still the strong A, B comparison going on, and you can clean it up a bit to say, "One craves love while the other rejects it."

The next sentence works well on a new line, since it breaks the format of the previous sentences. But I'd move that last sentence to its own line to emphasize the importance of the question, and you could potentially split that into two questions for slightly different effect. That's up to you. I think it works both ways. Either way, there should be a "the" before "universe." If you don't split them up, there should be a comma after "other," or if you do split them up, put a question mark there instead.

As far as the quotes, there should be a period at the end of the first one, and it might be a trick of the font, but just make sure there's no space before the first period in the second quote. Adding a section divider between the blurb and the quotes would be a nice touch, too.

Cover: 9/10
The only problem with this cover is that it doesn't have your name on it. Otherwise, the character images sit well on the background without the copy/paste feel I see sometimes, and I love the colors. Bright marine background, bright blue clothing, the realistic anime style characters—love it. And the title is perfect. The placement, differing font styles, sizes, and colors, everything is fantastic. As far as where to put your name, you could squeeze it into the bottom right-hand corner in a font that works well with the rest of the cover at a size that's small enough not to detract from anything else, or you could try running it up one of the sides. Like flip it 90 degrees from normal horizontal format and stick it in the upper- left or right-hand corners. Or—ooh, this would be good if you could pull it off. Put it in a little bubble. You already have bubbles in the background on the upper right-hand section of the cover. So make another bubble, big enough to hold your name, while keeping everything small enough that it doesn't mess up the rest of the cover. That would be really cute if it works.