Title: One Summer
Author: freedomgirl007
Genre: Mystery/ Thriller
Position: First place Winner
Reviewer: CrownedMadness

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✨TITLE✨

The title could be better. 'One Summer' gives more of a romantic teen-fiction vibe than a mystery-thriller vibe, and it's kind of an overused title in the said genres as well. I'd suggest getting a more authentic and original title that fits the plot and genre of the novel.

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✨ COVER✨

The book cover isn't necessarily eye-catching, but it does its job. The elements combined are relevant to the plot, and though I'm not a fan of the font, it's not the worse. There's a cohesive colour scheme going on as well, which is great.

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✨BLURB✨

The blurb introduces the protagonists - Dakota and Alex through a sort of profile layout. That's creative and it plays along with the characters' personality and the plot of the novel as well.

The blurb is mysterious and has a decent amount of information, but it needs some refining. The wording and sentence structuring needs tweaking to convey what you mean better.

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✨ CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT✨

Though the characters - Dakota and Alex has personalities of their own, they fall a little flat. For example, Dakota is said to be a 'genius'; I would've liked if you'd given her a unique speech pattern and vocabulary that'll showcase this trait of her. This will also help enhance the story as you're showing the readers she is in fact a genius through her body language instead of merely telling us.

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✨THINGS YOU CAN WORK ON✨

This brings me to one of the areas that I felt could be improved upon - more details and descriptions. I'd noticed at one place how you used a picture of a house instead of describing how it looks to the readers. That is, in my opinion, amateur writing.

Use words, don't rely on pictures. The five sensory details help the reader immerse in the story.

The book needs cleaning grammar-wise. There's a couple of punctuation issues, typos and tense shifts.

The dialogues need work, too. Especially the parents', the dialogues sounds shallow and unrealistic to their role as a parent.

I also found it shocking how Dakota walked away unscathed after being caught by her parents.

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✨STRONG POINTS✨

The struggling family scenario incites sympathy for the characters and may even be relatable to some readers. There are a few mysteries (like, Alex's missing parents) that'll keep the readers' curiosity piqued.

There's room for improvement for 'One Summer' and with some tweaking, it'll be a good read. Keep writing!

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