Title: The New Rangers by Carter-n-Kaer
Source: Judging task for interview with -Chrysalis_Realm
Genre: Fanfiction
Fandom: Ranger's Apprentice book series by John Flanagan
Mature: N
LGBTQIAP+: N
Status: Complete
First impressions: 32/40

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*****

First impressions total: 32/40

Title: 10/10
I feel like it's kind of hard to go wrong with a title. While I'm not familiar with the Ranger's Apprentice books, this title seems to go perfectly well with a fanfiction about the original characters' kids. My only suggestion here is that you may want to add "Book 1" in the title so people know this part of a series, but that's not necessary, so I'm not docking points for it.

Blurb/synopsis: 7/10
So, first observation here. The asterisks. They're a bit annoying and redundant. You can move the info about this being book 1 of the series down to the bottom with the rest of the author's note. As far as separation from the blurb, I'd recommend sticking a line of asterisks in between the last paragraph of the blurb and the author's note. That's enough to indicate the shift in content without asterisks before and after the author's note. Also, there should be a "the" before "storyline," and I'd recommend adding a comma after "ago." The comma after "out" should be a period or a semicolon. I think a semicolon would work best for your tone here. And there should be a "we" before that last "just."

As far as the blurb proper, there are some grammatical errors here or there, but this gives a nice intro to the book. It doesn't have the biggest hook, at least to me, but that may be because I'm not familiar with this fandom. It's still enough to get someone interested.

So, for those errors, and I'll see if I can come up with some suggestions to improve your hook. In the first paragraph, you don't need a comma after "Rangers," but you do need one after "Halt." "As their" indicates a certain passage of time, but "reach" indicates a specific moment in time. Do they inform their parents when they turn fifteen, or as they near fifteen years of age? If it's the former, I'd change "reach" to "near," and if it's the latter, I'd change "as their" to "when." Either way, there should be a comma after "year." "Inform" and "wish" have a soft, proper feel to them, and adding a little edge will help with your hook. Swapping those out for "tell" and "want" would help with that a little. In general, that's a good way to improve your hook - looking for sharper, harder words. Condensing your sentences can help with that, too. Shorter sentences are catchier. So, for example, you could shorten the next sentence to something like this: "Neither man is surprised, but neither is certain he wants his only child in the line of fire." I swapped out the plural pronouns for singular, since "man" in the first part of the sentence is also singular, and "but" is a little harder-hitting than "yet."

The next paragraph has some redundancies that flipping order and condensing will help. So, to start, the way the first sentence ends with one name isn't technically wrong, but it feels weird after the previous paragraph listed more detailed info after each name. Moving the first part of the last sentence up to this point would help: "...Mitchell, the future ruler." Then the remaining info can all go together in one sentence with some swapping to harder words: "Horace wants him to train as a Knight, so they send him to the Battleschool at Redmont." And that's it for the content you have in this paragraph, but as I said earlier, it feels weird after the previous paragraph. Adding a little more info about the parents or Mitchell here would help balance this out with the first paragraph.

Because your next paragraph is your tagline, and that needs to stand out. Having a longer paragraph before this would give this single sentence a significant visual difference that emphasizes its importance. The only technical change I'd make here would be swapping "beneath" for "under," but playing with this to see which words you can swap out for something with a harder sound might help your hook. The danger mentioned in the first paragraph is minimized too much. Emphasizing that again here would add a layer of suspense and intrigue that would improve your hook and show the reader this isn't just a happy-go-lucky story about some kids playing Rangers and Knights for fun.

Cover: 8/10
Overall, this is a good cover. The image seems appropriate to the title and the blurb, and the font selection, color, and placement are also good. Mostly. The first issue that jumps out at me is your names. The lengthy space between "Holly" and "Victoria" is really awkward. I would recommend just using an "&" sign between your names and use normal single-spacing (Holly & Victoria Kaer). The second thing is the text at the very top. I thought there might be text there, but I wasn't sure until I pulled the book cover up on your profile where the image is a little bigger than it is on the title page of the book. Yep. There's text. I have no idea what it says, though. It's way too small and way too close in color to the sky. If it's important, then it needs to be bumped up a couple of sizes and probably darkened a few shades to make it legible. If it's not important enough to warrant that, then I'd recommend deleting it altogether, because it's just a distraction.

First chapter: 7/10
This is a nice little intro to the characters. First Holly and dad Halt, second Deva and dad Will, third Mitchell and dad Horace. It's a little on the bland side, but adding some details would fix that up. More descriptions are the main thing here, I think. I can't picture any of the characters. Maybe if I'd read the books, I could picture the fathers, but that wouldn't help me with the kids too much. Just drop a few notes about appearance here or there, surroundings, little things to make them more concrete for the reader. At the moment, Holly is basically the same as Deva to me, and Halt, Will, and Horace all have the same personality. Mitchell is the only one who really stands out.

As far as SPAG, you're pretty solid here. Commas are the main problem here, which could be because they're annoying, and it can be a pain to figure out where they're required and where they're stylistic choice. In general, you use them too little. There are also a few areas in dialogue where commas should be semicolons or periods.

But this is a cute start. It's interesting how the future ruler is a shy home-body while the two girls are the outgoing, brave types. Kind of swapping that damsel-in-distress and knight-in-shining-armor thing around. I'll be interested to see where this goes.