Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Faye: Fated to Love

Title: Fated to Love

Author: Monelo_Aurum

Reviewer: Fayesther

Title + Cover: 5/5

The title is nice and simple and fits your story premise.

I love, love, love your cover! What a beautiful picture! The fonts are clear and well placed. I was excited to click on your book when I saw your cover.

Description: 4/5

I really like the second half of your description; it captures the premise of your story well and hooks your reader in. The first half of your description doesn't need to be there, in my opinion, as this is repeated in your prologue.

Grammar: 3/5

There wasn't a lot of grammar issues really. I noticed and pinpointed any typing mistakes as I read.

I would like to mention just a few things that stood out to me also:

"Life there were said to be a dream come true..." – "were" is a word that is used to describe a group or a plural noun, "Life" here is a singular noun – representing life as a concept. Therefore "was" is the better word choice for this sentence. Where you wrote "were" later on in this paragraph is correct because you are talking about "people" which is more than one person.

There was a repetitive moment in chapter one where you wrote "Ambrosetti Incorporated headquarters" three times, close together. This came across as a bit chunky. I think it would benefit this paragraph if you only write the whole title once.

"...It won't take long.," he paused instructing her and looked at her with a soft smile on his face, "You know..." – "he paused instructing..." is a separate sentence to the speech, as it doesn't include a tag (he said etc.) So you should end the first lot of speech with a full stop and start the next piece of speech as a new sentence.

Edit: "it won't take long." He paused instructing her and looked at her with a soft smile on his face. "You know..."

Fixing these small nit-picky things will polish things up nicely. But honestly, I didn't find a lot of errors really and with English not being your first language your grammar is incredibly impressive.

Writing Style: 3/5

You have a "Tale of old" style, which I think is really cool. The prologue set the tone really well. I got medieval, fantasy vibes from it – which is totally up my street!

You managed to tell a story set in a modern setting in an old fashioned way, this is really clever. I got Disney's Black Cauldron vibes from your first chapter, even though it is set in a modern day business building. You communicated the chilling nature of the CEO brilliantly with unpredictable, heinous acts of mindless violence. I could feel the fear of his employees and instantly hated the awful man!

However, I found the set up of the surroundings a bit slow. How you described the building did not really match the rest of your medieval/classic style of writing. I think it would improve this chapter if you exaggerated the darkness of the scene. So rather than just describing what it looks like, include what it feels like going in there. For example, you could draw in comparisons to medieval prisons/ torture chambers (just an idea feel free to ignore).

Chapter two brings a nice contrast to chapter one. Showing very different characters. You keep the idea that you are telling a modern day fairy-tale as you seem to be following a formula of many fairy-tale films do – introduce the evil character, then lighten things up with the introduction of your protagonist.

I like how you integrated Sera's past, when trapped in the elevator, using small snippets of flashbacks. That was nicely done. It gave the idea that her mind was flicking back and forth between her present situation and her traumatic past. What she endured in her childhood was shocking and it really explains her reactions when the elevator breaks down.

The sentence "A puppy testifying for me against a wolf. Funny indeed" seemed out of place though. This is Andre's thought rather than part of the narration. To set this apart I would put it in italics, just so the narration stays consistent.

Moreover, the large section showing Sera's thoughts in chapter five, I believe, is a bit long winded. In affect you are recapping the story so far in this paragraph and I don't think that is needed at this point. You could condense this down to just her thinking that she's "running in a circle of bad luck" – I don't think the rest is really needed.

I like how you wrote in the boy's accent, that was a nice addition. It helped bring his voice to life and didn't seem out of place within the rest of your story.

You have some beautiful descriptions in your writing; describing the boy's eyes as "doe-like" showed very clearly how Sera felt towards the boy and in turn how the reader should feel towards him. Good job.

Characterisation: 5/5

You brought interesting ideas to bring your characters to life. You do so in unique ways that I really appreciate.

The way you build up Stefano Ambrosetti to be a very intimidating man was really effective; I like that you described him through his employees reactions to him, using subtle descriptions such as his rare, evil smile.

It was really clever to mirror how you introduced Stefano Ambrosetti by introducing Sera in a similar way – explaining how others see her and react to her. This helped to expose how different she is to the evil CEO in the first chapter. She is beloved, beautiful and likeable.

The little boy selling pamphlets was incredibly well written. For such a small glimpse into his everyday life you managed to showcase a lot of unique character traits within him; a strange accent, strange opinions as well and humble physical traits. The dialogue between him and Sera was a clever way to show how his mind works.

Plot: 5/5

You effectively set up a dangerous reality for those who live in Myask. Setting the scene and the dark tone to your story really well. You then follow it up with a terrifyingly abusive CEO and the shivering wrecks that are his employees. This chapter brought shivers to my spine and truly started your story off with a bang!

Sera's introduction was handled incredibly well. You gradually include character exposition that paints a vivid picture of who she is without giving the reader too much information all at once. You then seamlessly move the plot forward with every step she takes and you end her section beautifully, stoking the reader's intrigue by bringing in a sense of mystery with the short threatening note her family received about her.

The elevator scene was really good. It was informative and helped me connect to Sera. For such a simple scene you managed to include a lot of intrigue and character exposition and you tackle communicating all of this information with a nice flow and in an interesting way. Using fascinating flashbacks and well thought out reactions from Andre.

Your story moves in a nice pace. Poor Sera truly goes through some awkward times. She doesn't seem to be able to catch a break.

The plot so far is intriguing and unique. You have shown some great ideas in these first five chapters, well done!

It'll be interesting to see an interaction between Sera and Stefano in the future. They are such polar opposites that I'm guessing it'll be quite dramatic.

OVERALL SCORE: 25/30

A fantastic modern day fairy-tale! This story has fantastic over-the-top characters that are exciting to read about. Your work has great potential you should definitely keep going!

Thank you for asking me to review your brilliant writing. I hope my feedback is helpful.