Reviewing The Future[Closed for Catch-Up]

Shadow and Snow

Book: Shadow and Snow
Author: booksandbakedgoods
Review Type: Beginning

Chapter One "Once Upon a Time"
• "Most of the time when you hear "once upon a time"". That's repetitive. Try changing the beginning of the sentence. But other than that, it's a really good hook.
• Side note—how do you get those images? The dividers? You use a rose here. Like how do you find these images?
• Add a "so" after "for crying out loud" and before "you would think they would keep the elevator".
• Add a "then" in front of "at least she wouldn't break into a sweat".
• Dialog tags are always lowercased, even when the dialog ends with a question mark. "She grumbled" and "the woman asked" should be lowercased. As well, if you have a dialog tag(unless your dialog ends in a question mark or exclamation mark) your dialog should end with a comma. If it ends with a period, you can't have a dialog tag. Correct example: "Hi," she said. Incorrect example: "Hi." she said.
• When a new person is speaking, make it a new paragraph. Isla speaking after the infomercial lady speaks should be a new paragraph.
• Excellent description.
• The sentence "she was about to close her eyes and say her final prayer before she was murdered" it needs some form of punctuation after "murdered" before the rest of the sentence. Whether it's a comma, or a semi-colon, it needs something.
• "The water she had been in" not "has been".
• "When the little ones are asleep" not "until the little ones".
• The paragraph of Nokoma introducing herself is wayyyyyy too long. Break. It. Up. Every new person talking is a new paragraph. I know it seems like a bunch of small paragraphs, but trust me, that's better.
• When someone is cut off speaking, you end it with a dash(-). I personally end mine with a double dash(—). So it would be "just trying to take a bath and I found myself here and—"
• Nokoma holding up her hands is not a dialog tag, so it ends in a period.
• When Isla finds out she's going to be mated to the king she needs more freaking out. She's about to be married!! To a stranger!!! In a strange world!! Why is she jittery but calm? She should be freaking out.

Chapter Two "Meeting the King"
• When she steps into the ballroom: "as I stepped into the room". I? You just switched to first person? It should be she.
• "Turning to the side". It's a new sentence, "turning" needs to be capitalized.
• You misspelled Paxton's name(right before he tells her they're mates).
• You're trying to make him seem all hot when he says "you're mine", but it's not working. Give us that slow moment before he says that, where his eyes slowly harden. And Isla realizes he's not as innocently happy as he seems. Give us the sudden fear/anxiety in Isla. Also, when he reaches out a hand to touch her, tell us how. Is it like an owner admiring something they own(be more specific than that) or like a predator seeking their prey?
• When Isla thinks "I can't do this" italicize it. Unless this was first person, which it's not, it has to be italicized. (Also make that a new paragraph.)

Chapter Three "Escape"
• The sentence where he hears her footsteps, looks up, and walks towards her, is needlessly long. Change it to something like: "Hearing her footsteps, the Prince glanced upwards. He strode towards her quickly." Two sentences is good.
• "My palms" you mean "her palms". Make sure to stay in third person!
• Paxton's mood swings are too abrupt. If you want him to be rough and tough, you need to constantly make him like that. At the moment it seems he's very bipolar. If you're going for that, great. *That was my note from then in the story, but now I want to say that it works. Just make it very clear it's a sudden urge he can't control. Make him gasp or something.
• "But she had an idea but he needed to be far away". Instead of the second "but" exchange it for an "and".
• "Share at her friend". Do you mean smile? Smile at her friend?
• I was going to say it takes more than a night to make a wedding dress but I guess they're fae, aren't they?

Chapter Four "Here Comes the Bride"
• First sentence: "so" should not be capitalized.
• After she blacks out, there should be a divider between then and when she's just starting to re-wake up.
• You're missing some quotation marks when Paxton is talking while she's half-asleep. If it's a new paragraph, and the same person is speaking, you still put a quotation mark at the beginning of the paragraph. You don't need one at the end unless it's the end of the dialog.
• You really need a new paragraph every time someone new speaks, or else it gets confusing at who is speaking.
• Wait wait wait she's been married before? If she hasn't, fix that sentence. If she has, good allusion to more information!
• Add a divider before the sentence "the reception was a disaster". It's been a passing of time, you should have a divider. You kinda forgot about your dividers as you went farther into the story, which made me sad. I like the dividers!

Chapter Five "Ghosts of the Past"
• Your formatting is off. You need a space between the paragraphs, or else it looks messy and bad.
• The whole faerie magic thing is really cool.

Chapter Six "Winds of Change"
• You have really dramatic chapter titles, I love them.
• How can... how can one faerie outmatch even five guards? How is she that powerful? Sure, she can seduce some guys. Paxton by himself should easily be able to beat him.
• Your faerie ages are never quite clarified. What's the average lifespan of a faerie? Everyone seems to live different lengths. Jade said she's seen Paxton's great great grandmother, while Paxton himself looks to be Jade's age.

Chapter Seven "Spells and Snow"
• Missing a quotation mark before "guards! Seize her!"
• Again, fix the formatting. Add the spaces between the paragraphs, like in the first few chapters.
• Eos said Lillith, but Isla said Epione. Inconsistency with names.
• "Ward off" not "ward of Achyls in the process".
• "Paxton was soon after called away to attend an important issue, and Leaving Isla sitting alone." Should be "to attend to". Leaving shouldn't be capitalized. Delete the "and".
• You switched to third person in the middle of Isla's dialog, which is a problem. Fix that. (While she's telling Eos her problems.)

Chapter Eight "Falling Slowly"
• I thought he was a king as soon as they were married? Not when they had a son?

Overall
• Beautiful cover.
• Break up the paragraphs. I can't stress this enough. No one wants to read giant chunks of text. I know, sometimes it's confusing to know when to make it a new paragraph. Here are some definitive times to change paragraphs: when the time, setting, or speaker changes. As well, when you want a dramatic sentence you can make that in its own separate paragraph.
• Don't be afraid of short sentences, they provide variation.
• The gifs at the top of each chapter are nice touches.
• I like Isla's character—you stuck with it throughout the story. But she does seem to have a drinking problem, which confidently goes away when she's pregnant.

⭐️ Good job on this story! Take my advice at your will.

~Happy writing~