Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Sunshine: Crown of Roses

Title: Crown of Roses

Author: ShivSstories

Reviewer: ray_of_sunshine9

Summary: 4/5

Overall, you have lots of good elements to your summary. I love the quip at the start – I think the rhetorical question, followed by that answer, was clever and a great way to reel in the reader. I also think you've succinctly and effectively introduced your protagonist, a bit of purposeful backstory, and showed us the type of world we will be witnessing. Well done!

I do wish there was more cohesion at the end, however. Maybe show us more about the queen's game – refer back to that initial sentence, and tell us what will happen if she wins or loses to show us the stakes. Also, I love the ancient wicked force, but when you suddenly bring up a war, it feels a little disconcerting because it hasn't quite been alluded to just yet. Maybe show us more about where this war has come from so that there is more cohesion within your summary. Otherwise, good job!

Grammar: 3/5

Overall, your grammar is pretty polished – especially those chapters that have been marked as edited. However, even in those chapters, there are some things to look out for. I've picked out some examples from your novel to discuss:

I gritted my teeth shaking the thoughts from my head.

I would separate the two actions with a comma, like so:

I gritted my teeth, shaking the thoughts from my head.

Next, punctuation and dialogue. When dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'they exclaimed – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question, and an exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"Seph, let's get out of here." I whispered.

It should be:

"Seph, let's get out of here," I whispered.

And now, what about if there's a question mark at the end of the dialogue?

"You, behind that tree, get out of there who are you?" She ordered.

The question mark is actually treated as a sort of comma, so the 'she' should not actually be capitalised. Additionally, the dialogue itself needs some polishing. Consider:

"You, behind that tree, get out of there! Who are you?" she ordered.

Now, let's talk about run-on sentences. Here is an example of one:

I shivered, turning to smile at her, we were waiting for the queen's announcement.

What you have there is a run-on sentence – more specifically, a comma splice. This is because, in that sentence, you have two independent clauses; those are clauses that could be sentences on their own. It should be:

I shivered, turning to smile at her. We were waiting for the queen's announcement.

There are also some overall typos and spelling errors to look out for. Here are some I picked out:

"Beasts were bound with the gods and to have realised one goes against the treaty."

I believe you meant 'released' instead of 'realised.'