Rose Reviews

A Study in Scarlet

Author: Simonemma1

Title: A Study in Scarlet

Genre: vampire (I might change this to fanfiction or at least have a very detailed note admitting that you use characters that are not your own.)

Mature: I'm going to say yes. There were some sexual scenes in the prologue and LGBT scenes (which I don't count as mature, but some people might).

Cover and Title: 3/5
I really liked the title. It was catchy and a real attention grabber. I haven't quite figured out what it refers to, but that's okay.
The cover was a bit bland. The title seemed disconnected from the rest of it, and personally, I'm not a fan of the text going down along the side. And although he's very attractive, I couldn't help but slightly roll my eyes seeing yet another vampire story using Ian Somerhalder as their vampire. It's your prerogative what model you chose, but I encourage you to be more original.

Blurb: 2/5
It was way too short. There wasn't enough there to grab my attention. While the information is relevant, and you don't want to give too much away, try to spice it up.

First Impressions: 5/5
I loved your prologue. It was undoubtedly my favorite part of the book. That being said, it took me awhile to figure out that Killian wasn't yet a vampire.

Characters: 4/5
I really like Kilian and Jack. Their arrogance is refreshing. Kilian is obviously not your perfect, virtuous MC, which is good.

I was a little surprised to see names like Dean Winchester and Dr. John Watson because I didn't see anywhere that acknowledged that you were using characters that weren't your own. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's important that it doesn't look like you're claiming those characters are yours. Also, since I've never seen Supernatural, or any kind of Sherlock Holmes, I was unable to grade those characters because when using canon characters, it's very important to keep them in character. Since I don't know these characters, I couldn't judge how well you did that.

Grammar: 3.5/5
While mostly clean, I noticed several instances where the dialogue got separated by the dialogue tag.
Also, remember to start a new paragraph every time you switch the focus of characters. For example: Kilian did this, this and this
(New paragraph) Meanwhile, Jack did this.

Plot: 3/5
Based on the chapters you assigned me, I never really got into the action. I ended up reading more than required to see, but couldn't find all that much plot.
It seems to take a very long time to get anywhere, but I think that's because readers measure in chapters, not in length. If you combined several of your first chapters, it might fix some of these problems.

Overall: 3.416/5 or 20.5/30
An easy read for anyone who loves Sherlock, Supernatural, and Vampires.