Sapphire's Review Store 2.0

Review by Sunshine: Harvest Season

Title: Harvest Season

Author: EchoSagal

Summary: 5/5

Perfect. I have nothing to say here, really. I love the little description of the setting that kickstarts the summary, and you very cohesively follow the structure of a traditional summary; protagonist, conflict, and stakes. And even with all of that, you've managed to excite me with all the magical elements mentioned – witches, warlocks and bandits? Sign me right up. All in all, I'm very excited to start reading this!

Also, I usually don't mention the covers but holy moly, your cover is stunning. It's professional, simple, but captures the mood of the story. Incredible work! 

Grammar: 4/5

Honestly, your grammar and punctuation were pretty polished. If I wasn't such a stickler for this sort of thing, I probably wouldn't have noticed a thing. Alas, I am a stickler, and I noticed a thing or two.

First of all, if dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'she exclaimed' – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question and exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"Bullshit." Blakely muttered.

In this case, the 'Blakely muttered' refers directly to how the dialogue is spoken. It should be:

"Bullshit," Blakely muttered.

Another example:

"Ivan" Dicky gushed.

In that example, you're missing punctuation altogether. It should be:

"Ivan," Dicky gushed.

Also, some of your sentences aren't quite cohesive. They tend to be a bit clunky and take a bit of rereading to understand. For example:

"Finally above deck, the poor child was seeing the sun for the first in weeks up until an eagle-like beak had eclipsed the sun's rays."

You're missing a word after 'first', and you're also lacking punctuation to make the sentence fluent, and I highly suggest placing a comma between the words 'weeks' and 'up'. That, or you can even change it to:

"Finally above deck, the poor child was seeing the sun for the first time in weeks. Or, at least, that was until an eagle-like beak had eclipsed the sun's rays." 

Characterisation: 5/5

We're only five chapters in, and in the very first chapter, Blakely literally throws a child overboard. And yet, I can't help but adore him. He's so sassy, his dynamic with Abis is so entertaining and engaging to read, and his frankness and classy sarcasm is honestly a joy to read.

As for Abis, I love that he is super chirpy to contrast Blakely's demeanour, but he still shows complexity by revealing a sterner side when Blakely did throw the child overboard. I have a feeling that I can trust Abis and his moral compass.

Dicky and Isla's interaction, in short, was absolutely precious. Dicky seems like a sweet, pure and innocent cinnamon roll – and I love how well that contrasted Isla's chaotic energy. I did laugh out loud when she punched Dicky in the gut to make him 'feel better'. Your interaction between characters is executed extremely well, and you introduce characters at a steady and delightful pace. Well done! 

Writing Style: 4/5

I love how your narration itself is peppered with humour. From flinging cats into faces, huffing and puffing, sarcastic quips about children's vocal cords, the proliferating annoyance... even moments of great intensity felt light-hearted. I think that was your intention with the story, so well done with that! Humour is obviously a niche of yours.

Additionally, I thought it was clever how you play with the structure of your story and branch away from a linear tale. For example, at the end of chapter two, we get the hint of trouble; then, in chapter three, we start in the middle of the trouble, and spend a few paragraphs backtracking our way and showing the reader how we ended in that situation. I love bold choices like that, and in your case, it was done well. Great work!

You describe settings really nicely. I was particularly fond of the way you described Abis's smile, as well as his overall description. I like how, when Blakely was running for his life, he described the world as red – crimson chimneys, scarlet smoke. That was beautiful, and woven into the story very nicely.

There were moments, however, where I felt like you were almost forgetting to describe some other important things. For example, in the first chapter, they were on a deck of a boat – but I didn't feel it. Where was the sea breeze? The salty air? Or at least a brief description of what the actual boat looked like? 

Plot + Originality: 4/5

Overall, I can't really judge a plot based on five chapters alone. I do think you kickstart the story with a good, fast pace that still leaves room for good characterisation. I like that your story has a mix of the past, present and future; we have a medieval-esque setting with apothecary, we have present language and pop-culture with cologne and references to Sherlock, and we have unfamiliar names and acronyms that hint at the science-fiction elements to come. Great work!

While I'm glad you didn't info-dump, I am struggling a bit to work my head around the mechanics of your setting. You haven't shown us much about it yet – I presume that's because we're in very early stages – so I look forward to seeing how you help the reader ease into your story more. I wonder whether, since Blakely is unfamiliar with the setting, you could compare what he's used to, and use it to compare and contrast the current setting? That might lead to stronger worldbuilding, and it'll help us understand the overall mechanics underpinning the world a bit more. 

OVERALL SCORE: 22/25

Overall, an extremely riveting story with great elements of fantasy and sci-fi. I'm so excited to see the direction that this story takes, and with a bit of work on your punctuation, you should be good to go. I hope this review helps.