Rookywriters Book Reviews

Review 25 @Xohrats

Book: When Night Comes
Author: xohrats

REVIEW

1. First chapter blues

*  Summary / prologue  - The summary is rather short. Although it contained the precise info for the story, I think it needed to be elaborated with style. It's sounded like an opening theme for the fantasy series not an actual description of a story.

The prologue was well written and interesting.

*  Intro to main character - Good background information on the main characters.

*  Intro to story - Good.

*  Intro to genre -Good.

2. Story Settings

*  Description - Your description of things, places and characters are very much professional. I just want to point a few things to you.

Check this out,

I cringed when I suddenly felt a strong gush of wind. The humidity around us building in suspense, my skin shivered and prickled. Tiny goosebumps dotting my arms.

This whole sentence literally means she was afraid or nervous.
Some emotional feelings don't need to be described. It's better you say she was afraid, than describing the processes involved in that.

Again...

An old woman in simple clothing softly padded by, not at all distracted by the padat estate.

Now this is where we needed the actual description. An old woman in simple clothing is not enough to give readers a full knowledge of how the old woman looked.

Description is good when it's done on the object not on the feeling within a context.

Describing feelings can be added during dialogues. When characters are talking and we want to know what is going on with their facial expressions, gestures, skin color changes etc.

*  Theme - Theme of magic, power and adventure was noted.

*  Intrigue / Suspense factor - Each chapter had a hint of suspense. Good.

*  Relation to genre -Story is related to the genre, fantasy or dark fantasy.

*  Time setting  - Timing was observed in the story.

*  Character development  -Characters was well developed and relatable. Good.

3. Story Tone

*  Grammar -Grammar was on point. Good punctuations.

*  Dialogue - Dialogue was limited in the scenes. As if the characters were being held by the writer not to say too much. But dialogues was flowing and helped push the story forward.

*  Choice of words - Choice of words was quite overpowering for a fantasy book like this.
The use of similes and metaphors is good but not too much of it.

*  Chapter flow - The story didn't flow completely from chapter to chapter for the first five chapters. Each chapter came with its own story which did or did not fully connect with the previous chapter. There is always a sudden act, or info in each chapter that might leave readers questioning. Until in chapter six when Frejya was arrested, then the story began flowing.

*  Writing voice - You have a strong writer's voice. Very engaging when reading.

4. Creativity

*  Plot development - Story plotting is quite intense I must say. This is a big fantasy story and writing it from a first person pov makes the story feels constricted because readers only get to know what is happening only from Freyja's point of view. I must say you did a good job there.

From your review request I have a few suggestions to make, it's just my opinion though.

1. Moving on to the first chapter, the third paragraph which began with

'When I was born I meant nothing to the people of Osen except my dark hair.... '

Can come first and be the opening paragraph for chapter one. Then adjust the rest of the paragraphs according to which info should come first before the other. That way readers will know a story is about to begin based on the female main character.

2. The title for chapter one 'bow to me' is not really in line with the content because the first chapter is a brief history about the main character not necessarily a full exercise of her power.

3. The 'forty years later' scene was quite different and questionable.

Definitely a lot must have happened in between this time lapse. And I don't know if the people of Osen age with time, do they get older or not?

What are their attributes, strengths and weaknesses? Are they warriors, magicians, 
Warlords? Etc.

You mentioned faeries. What are they in reference to your book. Do they have similar body features with the normal fairies? Etc

4. The first paragraph after the 'forty years later' says,

'Under the dim lighting of the evening sky, Rodian and I...'

Then the next paragraph says,

'Under my meager bed, stacks of stolen books lay hidden in the shadows...'

The first gives a feeling that they were outside, and the second says they were in a room. It's not really connecting.

The small servant girl is also kind of questionable. Was she serving Rodian and his sister?

There's no mention of the location where they were. What they were doing there or how they arrived there.

And is the main character still actually practicing how to use her powers after forty years? If so, then why wasn't she able to accomplish that after all this years?

5. Chapter three says 'rule all'. Okay.  Like I said each of your scene comes with new information that we have to find out at that emergency point in time.

As Rodian and Frejya was eavesdropping, nobody knew it was wrong until the half sister caught them. Didn't they know? Because we the readers was not informed about that earlier.

Another question is why are they eavesdropping in their father's house? Did her father disown her?

So Piyashi suddenly 'lunged forward and yanked Rodian'... Is she that powerful? There's no full explanation of what kind of power she has and why did she have that kind of effect over Rodian, that he wasn't able to fight back.

This little information could help shape up the first three chapters.

*  Writing style - Your writing style is totally full of power and you seem to take full control of your characters well being. Whatever they do, say or think is fully at your command.

It is good though, but sometimes characters need to think for themselves. Or the story will only evolve around what the writer wants not minding to carry the readers along.

5. Personal thoughts  - When night comes is really a fantastic book. The writer did a good job creating all those empires and characters.

The world building is great. It only feels one sided because we only get to see or know about some locations from the first person pov.

Yes a lot was going on in the first three chapters, you just have to arrange the scenes and work it out in order of occurrence.

*  Overall - Beautiful book. Well written, good story for dark fantasy lovers. You get a ten out of ten!

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