| | Indefinite Hiatus | |
I hope to return to this project someday, but it isn't feasible with my current health issues and life circumstances. I have to cut things from my workload so I can breathe. However, I still intend to complete my current li...
Source: Feedback request Genres: Mystery, romance, thriller Mature: Y (abduction, blood, death, frequent strong profanity, murder, physical assault, sexual assault, sexual references, smoking, stalking) Status: Ongoing LGBTQIAP+: N First impressions: 35/40 Digging deeper: 56/100 Final thoughts: Incomplete (inactive since 12/23/2024)
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First impressions: 35/40
Title: 10/10 Great title for a dark romance. It gives me forbidden love (or perhaps lust?) vibes immediately, and it's very attention-grabbing.
Story description: 9/10 I like the content and structure of this blurb. It introduces the main character, Kristen, along with her background as a troublemaker initiating her enrollment at a school known for straightening bad girls out. Grammatically, it's spotless, and it has a good hook, too. I don't think you need to mention her father's name, though, as I'm not sure how important that is to drawing potential readers into the story. Slipping the male love interest's name in would probably be more important. But otherwise, great blurb.
Cover: 9/10 First comment: That's a lot of rings! Who wears that many rings? (Obviously not me.)
Anyway, moving on to the actual cover analysis, I love the gray scale imagery. It adds to the dark, mysterious impression from the title and enhances the concept of a forbidden, secretive relationship. The woman's hands are the central focus, and then the eye goes to the title, set over the back of the man's head in a stylized print font with cursive elements, plain white and clearly visible. That's all great.
But following the title down, my eyes go to the subtitle, which is too small to read from the title page on the website. I can read it when I click the book title from your profile and bring up a larger image, but it's still pretty small, and I don't think it even needs to be there, anyway. "A student teacher dark romance" isn't a subtitle as much as a story tag. So, I'd cut it completely from the cover, because its illegibility makes it a big distraction.
The final element is your name, which is perfectly placed for visibility without distracting from the rest of the cover. It's a bit small, but it's still clear and legible in simple white and a relatively plain italicized font. All in all, I'd say this is a great cover, with the only problematic part being the subtitle.
First chapter (and everything that came before it): 7/10 Preface: This isn't really a big deal here, but I just thought I'd point this out, in case it pops up later in the story. The first paragraph has dialogue from two characters, and it's generally a good idea to start a new paragraph whenever the speaker/actor changes. That just helps readers follow the conversation better, and it eliminates confusion about who might be speaking or acting. So, if this was a paragraph within the story narrative, I'd start a new paragraph with "His grip tightened."
