Dreamland Review Archive

Leeward (T)

Leeward

empiresofwater

Thank you for being patient with this review! Sorry it took so long, I hope it's helpful!

Initial Impression: (cover, title & blurb)

Your cover is exactly the kind of cover that I sense historical fiction in. It's interesting and the subtitle really hooks us in. I have a few suggestions. For one, the colour of the words on top are a little too dark. I'm wondering if that's white or if it's off-white? Maybe changing it to white would make it show up better? Also, the title of your book could be a lot bigger. You're lucky that you've found a title that's short and fits well onto a cover, so I think you should utilize that more. Make it huge and see what it looks like. Last thing: I'm not a big fan of the 'by' before your name. If you make the author's name a big bigger and take that 'by' out, I think it'll look just a tad more professional.

I mentioned already that your title is short and snappy, and it obviously represents the story and even genre. The title let's us know exactly what we're in for, so I love it.

On to your blurb. I like the concise manner of your blurb, but I do believe you have a bit more info than you need. I think you could pull together that first line a bit, like this:

When the naval ship Ulysses mutinies in the Caribbean, no one knows how many of the crew are left alive, nor what the mutineers plan to do with the vessel.

It's a super tiny change, but it does flow a tad bit better, I think. I also took out the year because I felt it was unnecessary. They'll figure it out themselves and readers often skim over numbers because they're scary. Just a little preference thing there.

As for the rest of your blurb, it's really well done. It's short, and it ends super dramatically. It truly does interest me in the story. I actually went to rewrite it like I do with all the blurbs I review, and I just couldn't find a reason to change anything else.

13/15

Logistics: (grammar, spelling & dialogue)

(You use the semicolon correctly yay!! So rare on this app, but it's nice to see authors tackle that right.)

So basically, your grammar is almost perfect. There's one formatting error and one persistent grammar error I'd like to mention below:

First off, your dash is the wrong dash. You use dashes like this:

Masts - all those still upright - grew like a forest ablaze.

Basically, it should be the long dash for something like that, and there shouldn't be any spaces, like this:

Masts—all those still upright—grew like a forest ablaze.

So that's just a formatting thing, but on my laptop I just type - - those two dashes without the space between and it makes that long dash. I'd recommend figuring out how to fix that if you want it to be correct. It's really not that big of a deal, but it does mess with the flow a bit.

Next, the only persistent grammar issue is your use of the comma before 'and'. I'm not sure if the few times I saw this it was a just a mistake, but make sure you remember a comma only goes in front of 'and' if the second and first clauses are both independent.

Example:

From chapter 2:

'Nightingale recognized Whitehead's young son, Robert, barely twelve years of age, and already following in his father's footsteps.'