Hello LightinMind,

my name is Tiggy and I am reviewing your story as a judge for "Quotation Inspiration: Official Contest" . Thanks for entering! Please bear in mind that my comments and suggestions are only my opinion. Other reviewers might see it differently.


First Impression:

A very emotional story that luckily had a happy ending, but it could have gone either way. I have to admit that I couldn’t guess what this tale might be about from the first few paragraphs - you painted a lovely picture of a romantic breakfast and a couple that clearly was very much in love. This changed when Evelyn discovered ‘the album’ and found out about Adam’s past. The confrontation between love and truth propelled the plot forward, and I was glad to find out that he wasn’t quite such a bad character as she had first assumed.

You used the prompt well - the album with the pictures but more importantly, the details Adam had written on the back. I liked the way you tied it to the opening paragraphs, Adam’s diary entry, and the knowledge of good and evil, both contained in the album - justification of his actions but also his guilt.

The dialogue sounded very natural, although I was missing some dialogue tags that could have told the readers more about how the words were said. Evelyn came across as a little detached at times even though she must have been angry, scared, disappointed and probably had a whole lot of other emotions, but since the readers just read her words, it might have helped had you made those feelings a little mor obvious.


Suggestions:

Breakfast was his favorite meal of the day,
The sentence ended there, so the comma should be a period.

It was Evelyn, he smiled, She's probably been up for hours, he thought glancing at the clock which already said 10:30.
This is a run-on sentence with several independent clauses. I would suggest turning it into three sentences - something like this: It was Evelyn. He smiled. She’s probably been up for hours, he thought, glancing at the clock, which already said 10:30.

Then the album had been a matter of personal security a sort of insurance policy against his bosses.
This sentence needs some punctuation. I would suggest maybe a colon after ‘security’ to emphasise the explanation.

It was a momento of a life gone by
I think the spelling is ‘memento’.

"That is not the point, I was cleaning and they were dusty," for Evelyn that was all the justification she would ever need.
I believe the speech has a comma splice, and the part that follows shouldn’t be part of the same sentence. "That is not the point. I was cleaning, and they were dusty." For Evelyn, that was all the justification she would ever need.

I think it would be worth reading the rest of the story over again - those punctuation errors occurred a few times.


Final Thoughts:

It worked well how you brought the story back to the beginning, with Adam writing in his diary, concluding the thought he had at the start. It also served to reinforce how the prompt was important to the tale. A good read!