In My Opinion

Adam's Wife by ahavaenoch

Title: Adam's Wife by ahavaenoch
Source: Feedback request
Genre: Romance
Mature: Y (blood, emotional abuse, loss of a loved one, medical depictions, murder, rare strong profanity, self-harm, verbal abuse, violence)
LGBTQIAP+: N
Status: Complete
First impressions: 32/40
Digging deeper: 91/100
Final thoughts: Complete

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*****

First impressions: 32/40

Title: 10/10
I immediately thought of the Biblical Adam and Eve when I saw this title, so this is perfect for a Christian romance story.

Story description: 7/10
I'm not much of a poet, so I won't say anything about the poem other than it's pretty. It and most of the blurb are in the past tense, though, so the first sentence of the first narrative paragraph needs to be in the past tense, too, and the second sentence has some wording issues that don't quite make sense. If "the love in Evalena's eyes started stripping off itself," that means the love is stripping itself away, but I think you mean whatever was hiding that love is stripping away. So, rephrasing to something like this would work better: "Adam remained unaware until the barrier [or whatever noun is appropriate here] hiding the love in Evalena's eyes started stripping itself away, layer by layer, until the love was bare before him."

In the next paragraph, again, there's a problem with the second sentence. I think "about" is the issue. Changing that to "would happen" or "would she feel" would make more sense, and there should also be a comma before "but." Also, the last sentence should end with a question mark.

This isn't the most plot-heavy blurb. It's more vague and poetic, which I think works well with your writing style, since I've read part of the book already, and I know you have a very poetic, allegorical style. The plot is basically the couple and their relationship, anyway, so the story winds in and around their lives rather than following a set, straight path from start to finish. So, I think this is fine for this story. You could consider trying to incorporate more specific details in the blurb, but I don't think you really have to.

Cover: 8/10
I love the simplicity of a background image showing a couple dancing or embracing with no further graphical enhancements or adornments, and the placement, font choice, color, and sizing of the title is perfect. But the poem and your name are way too small. In the image on the book's title page, I can just make out your name if I squint, but it's too small even in the larger image when I click on the book name on your profile to get a larger image. The poem is really hard to make out in that larger image, too. I'd definitely bump the font size up for both, and you may need to adjust the placement of the poem when you do that. Maybe you can just move your name to the top of the cover and the poem to the bottom.

First chapter (and everything that came before it): 7/10
As far as grammatical issues, commas, singular/plural noun-verb agreement, dialogue tags, and awkward phrasing are consistent minor problems, but they don't detract from the beauty of your writing. I feel like it's cheating to do this, but I think my comment after the first chapter says it all pretty well, so I'm going to paste that here and tweak it a bit.

This is absolutely gorgeous. I only put edits in the in-line comments, because I felt like I just needed to do one comment at the end to summarize the poetry. Because this is poetry. The words you choose to describe the events, the vivid imagery you paint, the way the story unfolds and blossoms like a flower—it's just so good. I love how you carefully and quietly introduce more details as it goes—first one name, and then another, and a piece of backstory, and so on. Also, it's hard to find Christian books on this site, and the way you intertwine Scripture with your story is beautiful. I don't like to read smut, but even without that, a lot of what passes for "romance" on this site is anything but. It doesn't have meaning without God. It really doesn't. I mean, yes, people who aren't Christians can love each other, but that relationship with God just adds a whole new level of romance.