Dreamland Review Archive

Suns & Sparks (A)

Title: Suns & Sparks

Author: booklover311921

Chapters Reviewed: "The Golden Rose"

Cover: Your cover is rather simple and I'm not sure what the connection to this short story is. Perhaps it's fitting for one or more of the other stories? I'd almost expect to find a rose on the cover if it was just for this one story. But since this is a collection of short stories, I'd assume it would be something fitting for them all and fits a certain theme. From your blurb and the title, a comparison of the moon and sun comes to mind. Overall, it's not bad but I feel like it could be better and have a clear connection to the story and blurb.

Title: Again, rather simple but it's not bad. However, it doesn't quite match up with the cover or the genre. When I think of "Suns & Sparks" it gives me teen fiction and summertime romance. Which isn't a bad thing if you can make a connection to the main theme, maybe something with comparing the sun (light/good) and the moon (dark/bad)

Blurb: From the summary of your short story collection as a whole, there's room for improvement. The lines you use are good, but that's all they are. Pretty lines. It doesn't tell me much about the story collection at all. However, the summary you shared in your blurb was excellent for this short story I read. I wrote mini summaries for my own short story collection and wonder if that might be an option for you as well? Since I really like the one you created for this story. You could make little individual ones and stick them in that page you have for awards? Awards and summaries, maybe? Just an idea!

First impression:

Lara and Marisa seem quite excited about some sort of discovery they made. It's an interesting opening and really pulls me right into the story. They appear to be scientists working on something with genetics. It had me quite curious about what they've uncovered. There's not any description of them, but with it being in first person, I can understand that. No need to really focus on a person's physical looks when in this point of view.

What I did really like was the way you added their body language into their dialogues, as it gave them a natural feel. However, one thing I noticed that boggled the dialogues' flow just a bit is when they'd address each other by name suddenly. I understand how that's needed to know who is who, but in real life we don't tend to do this as often, so I'd advise to be careful with how frequently you do that.

Since this is a short story, I know there's not always a heavy focus on descriptions but I feel like you could include a few more tiny little details about their setting in what I presume is a lab. You mention a window and some test tubes, but that's about it. I don't need a blueprint of the place, but just some scene descriptions of the lab itself would help really visualize the scene with the women who've uncovered something seemingly great.

Chapter "The Golden Rose"

The emails take a sudden shift in character perspective, with Lara mentioned as an Aunt here. The discovery they'd made becomes more clear now, with them somehow finding a way to cure most diseases, as nobody really ever gets sick anymore. I do wonder how exactly they got to that stage, unless it had already started while they were working on it? I'm trying to figure out the dates with these two and how far apart they are. Perhaps some clarification would help here. Before reading the email, I hadn't even anticipated it to be a thousand years ahead of the present time either.

I'm also confused about the time gap between the scene with Lara and Marisa to the emails exchanged between Rhea and Regina. Were they recent? Years apart? I've been struggling to keep the times consistent with each other.