I hope you find my review helpful. Again, I've been as picky as I can be...


Opening Paragraph:

“From the Great Regal Court, of the last truly shining city of the Eastern Kingdoms of the Cadimus continent, her highness Queen Katrina Ardmore, announces a grand ball, in honor of Prince Simon. In celebration and preparation of his coming ascension, all unmarried young women from every royal family on all the continents of Novatus Prime, are invited and furthermore ‘Ordered’ to The Great Limestone City of Windsong. This royal event, will take place on the eve of the ‘Bright of the Moons’ festival, in the grand foyer of the Palace Keep.”

~ Although I think this is a nice beginning, I feel there are far too many commas in here, which makes it read a bit disjointed. Also, would this be a proclamation on a signpost? Surely messages to neighbouring Kingdoms would be sent by a personal messenger? This seems somewhat unlikely to reach all the Kingdoms in time...


Main body:

‘Great Sea’. I’m not sure why this has speech marks. I could be wrong, but the capitals already make it a name. Using speech marks to me makes it sound as though it is not a sea at all, but a nickname. Also, you are suddenly using the present tense for this paragraph, but the past before and after it. I would stick with one tense, otherwise it's confusing.

“The receiving line of the king’s court of Lords and Ladies bow and greet each of the potential suitress of the Prince.” Why do Lords and Ladies and Prince have capitals, but not king in this sentence?

You keep jumping tenses:

“The muffled voices of the court, coyly whispered, whilst they politely nibbled at the food served up from the sparkling silver dishes, by servants all dressed in crisp black and white. ” past tense followed by:

Near the bottom and left of the stairs stand many young women, all dressed in elaborate linens, and long flowing gowns. ~ present tense. I would stay with one tense, make stand stood, for example.

You have a really nice description of Rainey here, although it sounds like her dress is quite showy from the description- thousand of pearls, and a huge bell skirt(in linen too! A tricky feat to pull off.).

“fifty plus ”~ this is a modern phrase that does not fit with the world shown so far.

“Tushie ” just one thing, I don't know how you see this as being pronounced, but if it is “tush”~ to rhyme with “bush”, then that is a word in the UK, Australia and New Zealand for someone's bottom!

The queen found it, most inconvenient that in this kingdom, that to be crowned, the law required that the new king must be married. ~ no comma needed after “it”.
Sometimes you use a capital with King or Queen and other times you don't. I'd pick one and be consistent.
“Gate”this could be me correcting you needlessly, but in British English, we use “gait” to describe a walk, not “gate”. This could be the correct American English spelling, however.

I like that this was a dream. I enjoyed Rainey's dialogue here. It moves the story along well.
I also like the names you pepper through your writing, places from your world. They occur naturally within both the dialogue and prose, and it really nice.

It was the first Ogre ~ I'd have a new line for the speech in this paragraph.

The scene with the ogres was really good, I forgot to review and just the unfolding story! It's really well done, lots going on but not too chaotic to follow.


“grandfather’s, mother, so that makes her your great-great grandmother.” you don't need the comma after grandfather's.

““I was shown the place by, my grandfather, and I do not recall a single time he ever told me an untruth. ” no comma needed after “by”.

You have left a nice cliffhanger to.


Overall impression and reason for my rating:

I enjoyed this chapter. Rainey is a likeable heroine. She has guts, responsibility, and a poor upbringing to overcome. You have some nice conflicts brewing, and has touched on the problems she is facing. Although these are not original, it's told in a really nice style. I would definitely have enjoyed this story as a younger teen, although I think I would have felt a little old for it in the late teens and early twenties. This is because the characters are fairly typical of their genre, and as a more widely read adult, I feel there is a certain predictability about the up-coming story. I could be wrong of course...

Overall, a really nice read.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Go Noticed" .


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