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✦ { Kamila } Where the Thorns Rest

Client: fias_world_project2

Reviewer: Kamila_DeRico

Title + Cover: 19/20

The cover is quite captivating, with clean typography and an aesthetically pleasing image.

The title also has a nice ring to it, although a clear correlation to the plot hasn't yet been established.

Blurb: 6/10

The blurb poses an interesting question about love after pain and effectively sets up the central conflict of the plot. However, it is riddled with both grammatical and punctuation errors.

Plot: 3/10

The concept of love after pain is intriguing, and it becomes even more so when elements of family drama, forced marriage, and darker themes are introduced.

However, the execution of that concept in this book may have come off a bit too dim.

The first and most immersion-breaking issue concerns the lack of proper world-building.

The mention of barons and dukes suggests that the book may be set in the Middle Ages. However, there is little to no clear establishment of that fact — the year, day, and even the location are never stated.

This is an issue readers will certainly notice, as it disrupts narrative flow.

A more significant problem within the narrative is the lack of emotional weight, as shown by the introduction of important information without further exploration or explanation.

"...there were still some bruises and marks left from my father's beating and from the times my target tried to defend themselves from me before I killed them."

This would have been a great place to release immersive backstory, but readers only get this vague paragraph and nothing more to elaborate — and this is only one example.

Furthermore, the revelation of Nicholas being an assassin feels forced because:

His mannerisms and behavior reveal nothing about that side of him.

The book never foreshadows this information.

The story fails to explore the murders or his motivation behind them in depth.

There are also multiple consistency issues, with the book saying one thing but showing another through the characters' actions. Fortunately, these are relatively minor.

Suggestion:

1 I would suggest both proofreading and developmental editing to eliminate plot holes and inconsistencies.

Writing Style: 3/10

There are quite a few errors throughout, and unfortunately, they are capable of disrupting the reader's experience.

The first and most obvious issue is paragraph length. Some paragraphs go on for lines without breaks, making it difficult to track the last line read — which can cause reader frustration.

Inconsistency in Font Choice

At one point, the book uses a regular font; the next, a line or two is italicized, and later, entire lines are bolded.

While this was clearly done for aesthetic reasons — with dialogue in regular font, thoughts in italics, and everything else in bold — it ultimately makes the work look messy and inconsistent, especially when those formatting rules are broken multiple times.