Sapphire's Review Store 4.0

Review by Eliza: Rule of the Monarch

Title: Rule of the Monarch

Author: random_bookworms

Reviewer: eliza-lou

Firstly, thanks for letting me read your book! :) I noted you wanted a focus on characters, your dialogue, and overall readability. So, let's get started.

Title/Cover/Summary (3/5)

Title

Simple, clean, and to the point! Already sets me up to thinking we're in a fantasy world, or in historical fiction, and that the focus is on whoever is ruling this kingdom. Love!

Cover

I dig the picture a lot, and I think a different font could enhance it! A big thing on Wattpad is to catch readers eyes - so you want to clearly see and read 90% of the cover just from the thumbnail. I'd encourage you to allow the cover to fill the whole image (it looks like it was cropped), and play around with some fonts to be sure its clearly legible from the thumbnail on your profile.

**If you're looking for someone else to design it - check out our graphic design shop, or Canva! Canva is my bff (literally has a category called 'wattpad covers') and has saved me so much time in designing things.

Summary

A rule of thumb, in my opinion, for summaries is:

— introduce your main character (maybe 1-2 other important characters alongside of your MC)

— the main conflict of the story and/or MC's main goal

— the stakes: what could happen if the MC doesn't accomplish their goal?

— the cliffhanger/hook to draw the reader into wanting to find out what happens

Let's see what's covered so far & what can also use improvement:

— Main character?

Yes! Heather. Alongside of her, we read of a rival she has, the king who is killed, and the crowned prince.

— Main Conflict?

My thoughts before reading your chapters:

This could use clarification. The middle of the summary is where it starts to get a little confusing for me. Let's go through the main points (my thoughts are italicized):

So we have Heather - you establish she's been in the shadows all her life.

The king dies.

His death shines the spotlight of two heirs.

Heather is forced into this new world (I assume then she is one of the two heirs).

Her rival seeks her help (the other heir?)

But then the crowned prince goes missing (wait is this the other heir? Why is there a discrepancy between the two heirs? Wouldn't one of them just assume the throne?)

Now, Heather has a choice to assume the throne (she didn't have that choice as one of the heirs? Was there a competition?) OR fight for her kingdom (would that mean she couldn't have the throne and fight at the same time?)

My thoughts after reading your chapters:

I think the family feud most definitely needs to be in this summary. It's the catalyst for most of the tension within the entire story. I think a summary that gives an overall picture would better suit this book. So, in my opinion, the main points to hit are: the family's names & the fact that they're rivals, someone gets murdered, this causes even more tension within the family feud, and on top of that the crowned prince disappears... all lead to Heather having to set off on a journey to fight for the crown. With this, the reader gets a basic history (you can reveal more details about why the families hate each other within the book), set-up of what happened, our main character Heather and what she needs to accomplish & what will happen if she doesn't.