Hey Jill,

Wow! You are becoming a master of the Psycho-killer model of story telling. Bravo.

I love the complete sense of disorientation of this story. You start the reader out at a full run and never give them a breather. Nice. Keep them reeling.

The whole dueling personas during the dream sequence is awesome. It makes sense that subconsciously she would be aware of her alter ego. It's very well thought out so it makes sense thus making it more believable and ultimately more frightening.

The waking sequence was super cool in that it reminded me of Ziva from NCIS. The step-by-step play is sweet at building suspense but I think it goes on so long without a break that it tends to get a bit monotonous.

My suggestion would be to disperse some of the micro flashes from the murder throughout this part of the story. None of the ones that reveal the identity of the killer of course or even what has happened just bits and pieces of blood and violence. You want to show just enough to imply that Sasha was present when something horrible happened but not enough to reveal her as a killer. You could even mix the real flashes with bits of dream flashes for that matter.

I have to applaud the brutality of the crime. That was some straight up gruesomeness. I love it! You really have mastered this whole horror writing thing with your ability to write suspense, psychological horror and gore all with equal skill.

There are a few spots in your first person narrative where you might want to rethink your wording because they pull the reader out of the moment. I don't think people generally describe their actions in such detail. It is distracting. We are not usually aware of our facial expressions and such. Here are some examples:













It's funny but in these cases I think telling not showing is better. I would concentrate on telling the reader what Sasha is feeling rather than showing us her smiling. What sick emotion or thought is making her smile?

Anyway these are all just trivial points that can be tightened up with some minor revision and editing. No biggies.

Overall, this story is freaking awesome. I really really liked it. In my opinion it has it all suspense, intrigue, gore and just surplus creepiness. Well done.

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



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