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★ { Yasmin } Rhyshannon Chronicles | Book 1: A Path of Swords

Reviewer: Owls1221

Client: Aravis-Brightspell

Title: 10/10

To be honest, I like fantasy stories where they use their own fantasy names. I think this helps them stand out more and be unique in their own ways. It also makes the readers guess what this name Rhyshannon is associated with.

Cover: 10/10

The cover looks epic even though it was simple. The title was big and clear with its colour hue. The image does portray a fantastical landscape with the castle and red lightning. Overall, excellent.

Summary: 9/10

The summary was really great and it managed to grip my attention in terms of events that made me question what happened. There's just one thing that confused me a bit and it was the moment you mentioned the Druid. You said "His only hope of survival rests in the hands of an exiled Druid, himself shrouded in many secrets...".

Could you clarify who 'himself' belongs to? Is it the druid or david? If it was meant for the druid then it should be written as "who's shrouded..." or "who himself was shrouded...". These are just examples. But the overall summary was great.

Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation: 9.5/10

The grammar and spelling were fine and I didn't see any errors. Although, there were very small errors mostly related to the use of punctuation. Here are three of them.

First: I noticed that everytime you add a dash to implement a sudden event or action, you only use either one or three dashes throughout, but the most important thing was that you didn't add space between the dash and the next word. You see, the dash is really small when read on Wattpad, especially when you add only one without spacing it. I suggest that you treat the dash (aka hyphen) like commas and full stops, apply space after a dash and add at least two or three of them so they can be visible to the reader. Here's a quick example:

X incorrect X:

The footsteps stopped. Salvador looked harder but failed to spot the source. Yet he didn't have the time to look further when the sound of footsteps started again. Only this time it was fast, loud, threatening--Salvador made a run for it.

O correct O:

The footsteps stopped. Salvador looked harder but failed to spot the source. Yet he didn't have the time to look further when the sound of footsteps started again. Only this time it was fast, loud, threatening– Salvador made a run for it.

With this, the reader can easily know if there is a sudden action because they can see the double dash clearly and it was spaced. Also, because this is a new sentence, capitalise the first word of the new sentence to emphasise this is a new and sudden event or action.

Second: it seems like an accidental mistake but it's good to point it out just in case. In Ch.1 when Dr Mallory tells David not to worry, uncapitalise "Don't worry..." since you added a comma before the word.

Third: I noticed that you use a colon as an alternative for quotation marks for the Myrdraath's dialogue. To be honest, it's somewhat strange and I feel like it doesn't doesn't fit in the narrative. Maybe use regular quotation marks but keep the italics, with the italics we should hopefully understand right away that the villain is speaking in David's mind. This started from Ch.4.

Vocabulary: 10/10

In my opinion, there was great use of vocabulary and it wasn't too excessive with the big words. I like simple writing because I think it's enough and straightforward.

Hook: 10/10

The first chapter had definitely hooked me with the sense of urgency and tension and mystery. And it continued to hook me more with more upcoming tensions and dangerous situations. Doing this in the very first few chapters totally worked. And the fact you dove in and straight to action rather than gave us the first few chapters of introduction.

Character Development: 10/10

It felt like the MC had developed quickly, but it didn't feel rushed given the nature of the situations he was in. I like how you made the events and environment impact his perception of things and caused him to act realistically? One moment he didn't know anything and couldn't remember what happened prior to his attack, but due to the extreme nature of his encounter with the Myrdraath (and fact he's a teen but acted mature) he had this blend of uncertainty of what is happening and the courage and strength to act now. I feel like he's somehow different from other heroes in other stories; he's a bit smart and mature for his age.

Plot Development and Pacing: 10/10

Again, this type of story went straight into action rather than showing us what the character's life was like before the inciting incident. I like the bit where you quickly and briefly told us in a paragraph what he likes to do in his life (going to a bookshop after school). Since the first environment took place on Earth, we as readers already know the morning routine and what happens in classes etc. and it's good that you didn't mention or show us these things.

Saying 'bookshop' alone you gave me the idea David likes reading, and the fact you showed us some of the character's thoughts had told us other things about the characters' traits or knowledge. For example when David thought to himself 'you watched so many movies, this is really happening so run!' (not exact words but you get the idea). From that it implies David, like other teens, watches movies too. But to me personally, I could assume that he's been watching either action movies or horror movies based on that thought alone (I'm a Lit student, I can't help but analyse and interpret XD). So overall, the pacing and plot development were quick but in an engaging way, even some of the chapters were short.

Writing: 10/10

The writing, as I said in the vocabulary section, was excellent due to its simplicity. Most books I've read (even the ones that dated to the 19th century) contained a lot of specific information and linguistic gymnastics, which made it difficult for me to process what is happening in the narrative. Your style was direct, brief, and straightforward without excessive adjectives and has less details, but we still understood what was happening. For some reason it felt like I was reading a simple fantasy story that still managed to hook me and keep me engaged and immersed in the narrative.

I also admired the shift between POVs that helped us get a bit of description of the characters. Like the scene when we shifted to the nurse and from her perspective we got to see how David looked, at least a bit of it, and then smoothly switched back to David in the same scene.

Although, there is one teeny tiny bit of suggestion from me (just one small thing I swear). In the flashback scene in Ch.1, could you rearrange the paragraph where it tells us that David likes to go to the bookshop after school and put it before the man calls David? Because when I read it in between the encounter between David and the assailant, I thought it was the bookshop owner who was the one who shot David. (maybe it's my ADHD mind not processing well). Basically I got the words mixed up a bit but do let me know if it's just me.

But overall, the writing was amazing.

Personal Enjoyment: 9.5/10

It might sound harsh, but based on the narrative it seemed to me like a chosen one themed book. However, I wasn't unimpressed or bored. Again, the immediate action was what gripped me and kept me reading. But there's also another thing that piqued my interest a bit more. Correct me if I'm wrong, but based on your descriptions of the Myrdraath and some of the areas in the book (the ancient cave for example), it gave me the idea of a Cthulhu monster. I thought to myself 'Wait! Could there be eldritch like monsters and villains?! If there are, that would be cool to read!'. The reason I thought this way was because the way you described the creatures and the place resembled slightly to that of H.P Lovecraft's concept of time, knowing and not knowing things, human mind etc. Again I'm not very sure but having this idea did keep me reading the story.