Username: MusicalKehleigh

Book title: When the ocean calls

Genre: Fantasy/adventure

Focus: Writing, characterisation, pacing.

THE COVER:

The cover works beautifully. It's got a good focus image. The spatial awareness is great. Font choice, size and positioning is perfect. It's overall a well made cover.

Pointer:

I just have one single suggestion. Maybe make the letters a bit more in contrast to the background? It blends in a bit too much to be attention grabbing. Especially the "when the" part is a bit blurry as well as the contrast being less makes it hard to see. I like the pale gold lettering. But a deeper gold or a bronze would work better in my opinion.

THE BLURB:

It's a flawless blurb. You set up the story, introduce your protagonist and make sure to amp up the intrigue. The structure is really well thought out too. It flows beautifully from one thought to the next and the progression makes sense. Great job with this ♥️

THE PLOT:

Premise and Pacing:

It's a solid premise that's delivered on quite well. I like that you have a clear idea and a proper outline to set your story within. The elements of fantasy and adventure that's promised in the blurb is flawlessly integrated into the story. Great job with having an amazing premise to work off of ♥️

Pacing of the story was one of the focal aspects you asked me to pay attention to. Overall, it seems to be steadily paced but I did face an issue with one particular instance.

- The transition when Kiara gets lost in the sea is a bit rushed.

Since this is the inciting incident that the whole plot hinges on, it makes for a very pivotal moment in the story. But I felt it did not get the attention it deserved. I felt Kiara's panic did not get the kind of breathing room it needed.

You have lines like "Adrenaline spiked in my veins" and then there's a short paragraph that goes:

"I fought my way to the surface..."

Then the next chapter opens with Kiara waking up underwater. That was captured well. But the transition between Kiara feeling a sense of calm and enjoying the water to suddenly drowning felt a little abrupt.

And that's one more thing. I don't really understand how exactly she drowned and went under water. You mention it's the Bermuda triangle so maybe it's magical elements at play but there's no clear reason or explanation as to why things played out the way they did. She's just swimming and then she drowns.

My suggestion would be to spend more time on the pivotal scene and really take us in. Spend more time on Kiara's panic. Spend more time on the transition between tranquility and anguish.

Trust me I'm not one for drawn out descriptions that serve no purpose. But the reason I'm suggesting expansion is because this scene is pretty important and it needs to deliver a gut punch essentially. Brevity is good but this is too short to deliver any kind of impact. Before I knew it the chapter was over and the last line said everything went black. But the thing is, fade to black endings are only as powerful as their setups.

Otherwise I didn't find too many issues with pacing. Great job ♥️

World building:

Truly immersive world building. I could picture life on Oamer quite well. There were lots of little details that I loved but here are some of my absolute faves:

1. The detail about the glowing tails.

I loved the subtle commentary on classism. Especially on how the glow fish don't really add nutrition but the rich are ready to spend more money on it simply because it's a status symbol.

2. The underwater bed.

That was a cool detail to include because lying down would cause them to float up. Nice touch.

3. The water-retaining flower.

I love the concept behind flower petals filtered out the salt. What a cool idea. Great job with this ♥️

THE WRITING (TECHNICAL ASPECTS)

Your writing is grammatically very strong. I can see how much effort has gone behind editing out mistakes and typos. It's polished and I love the attention to detail. But since you asked me to pay particular attention to syntax, I did find a few minor errors with awkward phrasing where the syntax could be better.

The problem is similar/same phrasing that becomes too repetitive.

Take this instance from chapter 2 for example.

A. My eyebrows scrunched together as I slid on to the bar stool.

B. "Of course," I said, sliding into a wooden chair.

Those there aren't grammatically wrong, they are essentially the same sentence conveying the same action and meaning placed too close together. So it jumps out at the reader and hinders the flow.

There are other instances where this happens. The following lines are from the first two chapters.

A. Excitement tingled in my veins.

B. My excitement grew with every passing second.

C. Excitement pumped through my veins.

D. Excitement swelled in my veins, propelling me forward.

This repetitive structuring of sentences conveying the exact same idea each time is a bit distracting especially since all four instances are talking about the same thing — Kiara being excited to be in the Bahamas.

Then there's also the repeated mentions of somebody's jaw going slack.

The problem with similar sentence structuring and stilted syntax is that they contribute to a break in the flow.

My suggestion would be to expand upon the descriptions a bit and vary your sentence formation a bit. And also to reduce the number of times you tackle a plot point.

If you want to convey Kiara's excitement about the Bahamas I would suggest doing it only once. But doing it so impactfully that the reader doesn't forget it. One well worded description with proper structuring delivers a lot more impact than repeated sentences with the same syntax.

THE WRITING (CREATIVE)

For the most part, your writing is a joy to read with exquisite descriptions and carefully structured world building. But the major problem I faced is, your writing left me with a feeling of being tell-heavy.

It took me a while to figure out why I had this nagging feeling of reading something that was more tell than show, despite the well executed world building and decently executed dialogues. The reason, as I later figured out, is because while you give adequate descriptions with regard to inanimate objects, surroundings and setting the scenes, you don't focus nearly as much energy on explaining emotionally charged situations.

In most cases potentially powerful situations end up falling flat because of the relatively lacklustre explanations. You straight up tell us what the character is feeling at any given moment without effectively delivering us the gut punch.

Again, I don't mean long winded explanations are necessary to make an impact. Shorter, charged scenes do work better. But too much brevity — where it leaves the readers floundering unable to relate to the characters — hinders the writing rather than helping. Context is necessary in some places and unnecessary in others.

Let me explain my point with the following examples:

1. "Are you feeling better now?" Her voice oozed with warmth.

2. Frustration burned inside me . . . Why did this have to happen to me?

3. There wasn't a soul in sight. Fear gripped me.

4. Panic surged through me.

5. Irritation crept up my skin.

6. A cacophony of emotions crashed through my body.

7. Horror crept into my face.

8. Guilt gnawed at my stomach.

9. Excitement tingled in my veins.

10. My excitement grew with every passing second.

11. Excitement pumped through my veins.

12. Excitement swelled in my veins, propelling me forward.

All of these contain powerful words like horror, panic, excitement, guilt, etc. But even though I'm reading these words on the page I don't seem to be able to relate to it. I am not able to empathise or sympathise. I don't feel the excitement that Kiara apparently feels nor her horror. You are telling me that the characters are feeling these emotions but the prose doesn't seem to back it up.

My suggestion:

While you have perfectly achieved the show/tell balance in most cases, it's the emotions that seem to need your attention. I agree that it's a good idea to include physical reactions like blood rushing to the face, intestines twisting, heart beat increasing etc. but those won't have the impact you desire, if you are going to spell out the emotion that goes with it too.

For example, "I blushed" delivers a punch while "I blushed with embarrassment" does not.

If you want to show excitement I would suggest something like "The tingling in my veins was as intense as my rushed heartbeat." (I've tried to use the kind of words you seem to favour, this is of course just an example to make my point.)

Bottom line what I'm trying to get at is, I would advise against spelling out whatever emotion you are trying to convey. 9 times out of 10 just cutting out unnecessary context will do the trick.

CHARACTERS:

What I like best about your characterisations is the dynamic you establish between them. Be it between Kiara and Lani or Kiara and the merpeople, I like the relationships you build.

My pointer as to where your focus is required would be individual fleshing out of characters. And most particularly that of Kiara's.

I felt Kiara, the MC, is a hard character to relate to. She doesn't seem to have many defining personality traits. I do realise that character arc is a thing and that she probably undergoes transformation at some point in the book but then the thing is, five chapters is a long time to not reveal an attention grabbing heroine.

She just sort of floats along with everything happening around her. She doesn't seem to have much agency in driving the plot. The story begins with Kiara arriving to stay with Lani but it's Lani who overshadows her sister. Her struggles I understand. I empathise.

But with Kiara I don't really understand what drives her. The only thing she convinces me of, is her love for her sister. Which seems to be a pretty strong driving force for her as a character but even that isn't internal. It's something to do with another character. She comes across as a bit of Mary Sue.

Yes, timid MCs exist and it's a good and fresh idea to write a meek heroine, but the point I'm trying to make is that there is a fine distinction between a timid MC and a bland one.

A timid/meek MC would still internally react and respond to everything that goes on around them. Their mildness might prevent them from voicing their emotions out, but the way to counteract the dullness would be to write a rich inner world.

Kiara doesn't convince me that things are actually bothering/exciting her even though she tells me it does.

After five chapters I couldn't really tell you a defining Kiara trait, if asked to do so.

On the other hand, I love how you have portrayed Lani and I think you pretty much aced it. She's a well rounded three dimensional character with her own struggles, successes and emotions. She was a joy to read about. Great job with that ♥️

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Your writing is properly fitting of the genre. The meticulous attention to world building and vivid scene settings are the success of your story. The plot is exciting and delightfully lively. The only area I would focus on is a bit of character establishment and wording of stuff which can be corrected with editing. As I understand it, that is what you are doing currently and I wish you good luck for that ♥️

Thank you so much for asking me to review your wonderful story. I sincerely hope this has helped you in some way.

I wish you the very best with your writing ♥️