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Blurb:
Brynne is forced with a sheltered life until a royal invitation changes her life forever. Cinderella meets Little Red Riding Hood meets Rapunzel in this retelling of a human girl, a merboy, and their powerful friendship that could blossom into something they'd never imagined.
The Freedom to Desire
Cover: Under other circumstances, the cover would be fine. Unfortunately, because this is a fantasy book, it doesn't make much sense to me. It's kind of teen fiction-esque and the text is a bit bland. The title doesn't jibe with the overall sense it conveys. Your title strikes me as a historical romance/drama or a high fantasy thriller, so I was expecting to see some broad, looping scrawl and some bloody daggers -- not a pretty pale blue with a sunflower.
And, in my opinion, I don't think it clarifies the premise of your story. If it's a fairytale retelling, I feel like there should be glass slippers, red capes, or long, golden hair.
Blurb: Really short blurbs can work with some stories -- but I personally don't think yours is long enough. It's supposedly a retelling of the tales, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Rapunzel, but it doesn't tell us anything more. It's too vague, and the one sentence that actually mentions the plot doesn't add much detail.
-- How can she be 'forced with a sheltered life'? To me, 'sheltered life' typically isn't something forced upon another individual. Do you mean Brynne is kept in ignorance? And if she is, what exactly is she ignorant of? Does the society push propaganda to keep its civilians oblivious of maltreatment? Is there a royal scandal? I feel like there should be more added to it.
Chapter One:
The Freedom to Desire starts off well enough. No glaring grammatical errors. No confusing sentences...except for a couple:
'I rolled my eyes with a hard blow...'
Initially, I didn't understand what you mean by hard blow. Then I figured that Brynne was huffing in annoyance, but the sentence tripped me up at first due to the imagery problem with that sentence. I'd suggest wording that better.
'Your mother and I learned a thing or two about the dangers of those flower-sampling bees. Those human bee'ings.'
Again, initially I went, 'huh?' The text was talking about how perverted wolves are, so I have a guess as to what the phrase, 'flower-sampling bees', means, but I think a little more clarity (or a different analogy) would work better.
In Brynne's invitation, 'to meet the royalty of the merkindgom of Azurefynn, including the oldest merprince himself...' When you say 'oldest merprince', I had an image of Poseidon with a grey beard, and I don't think that's what you mean. Since he's the oldest, I assume he's the heir. The terms, crown prince, heir, expectant heir, heir presumptive, or heir apparent, would work much better than 'oldest prince'.
