Title: Fortunate Misfortunes

Author: Eleanor_May

Summary: 4/5

You have a really long summary, and most of it hardly focuses on the plot to come. It's mostly about backstory, about context to the name (which I love, by the way!), and then smoothly leads into a brief bit about how the fortune is about to come into play. That last line about fortune being in the eye of the beholder was a fantastic way to end it.

Personally, I would focus less on the backstory and more on the conflict, plot and stakes. Why should we be unsure if Henrietta's attention is good or bad? What are the stakes? Additionally, at times, your summary tends to be more on the informal side – but if that's a stylistic, purposeful choice, then that's fine.

That aside, I'm so excited to meet Varath! He sounds like such a cinnamon roll already. 

Grammar: 3/5

Overall, your grammar is pretty polished! There were, however, a few things I picked up on while reading that you may want to polish. Let's go through some examples as we go, yeah?

For......everything I suppose.

Whenever you are using ellipsis, make sure you are only using three dots – not six, not seven. It should be:

For...everything, I suppose.

Next, let's talk about commas. Let's talk about this first example:

There was nothing I wanted to do, my mind was utterly blank.

That is an example of a run-on sentence, where you have two independent clauses in one sentence with a comma or nothing to separate them; in this case, since you've got a comma between the two clauses, it is a comma splice.

In general, your comma placement – or, in some cases, your lack of commas – makes the reading experience quite awkward and clunky. For example:

I also within the year had better clothing that my master had given some money to Avira to have her buy.

Not only are you missing a comma to have that slight pause for 'within the year', but the whole sentence needs revising. Consider:

Within the year, my master had given money to Avira to have her buy me better clothing.

Next, dialogue and punctuation. If dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'she exclaimed' – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question and exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"That doesn't really answer the question, Your Highness." said Isla.

It should be:

"That doesn't really answer the question, Your Highness," said Isla.

Next, there were just a few more specific things. Be careful of words that sound the same but are spelt differently. For example:

Varath is far to innocent to understand that...

It should be 'too' instead of 'to'.

"There are people out there who's sole job is to catch runaways..."

"Who's" is "who is". It should be "whose".

She looked at he with a pleading expression.

Did you meant she looked at him, or looked at me?

Characterisation: 4/5

I have to say that I absolutely adore Varath! It's so interesting to have a protagonist that actually does not mind being a slave. He's not scathing or cynical, but lives in blissful ignorance – raised in a way that he thought was acceptable. It really makes the reader question how we would live if we didn't have our own thoughts. Even when he grows older, he's so charming – he says whatever first comes to his head, he's honest and sweet in an oblivious manner. I genuinely laughed seeing the way he responded to the 'I love you!' – the smile, the bow, but the utter disinterest was just so adorable.

I also loved our royal highness. I like how she sees the slaves, comparing loving a slave to loving a wall. The fact that she's ready to oversee all haughtiness and societal pressures and let herself feel what she feels. I like the rebel in her – it's a great contrast to Varath.

My issue with characterisation? There's a lot of telling. But, it's really hard to critique that because your story is told in a way where it felt purposeful and stylistic. But, for example:

He was a nice man, generally, and a good king, though he wasn't all that fatherly.

In general, it would be more engaging if you showed us this but fleshing out the story and including moments of dialogue, of characterisation, of interactions for us to read and see it for ourselves. 

Writing Style: 3.5/5

So, there was a lot of telling, but by the end, I couldn't tell if it was intentional or not. It felt like I was sitting down with the characters in the future, and they were telling me about what had happened to them in the past. It felt more like a recount of events than a story that I was supposed to immerse myself into.

But then, in the later chapters, I saw more story-telling than the recounting. There was an emphasis on dialogue and being in the moment. So, I'm not sure how much of a stylistic choice the recounting moments were, but I thought I'd let you know that it was a thing I noted. Perhaps, to make it feel like recounting, immerse your readers by showing us the description and making us live and breathe how the characters are feeling without blatantly telling us.

Also, make sure your sentence structures don't get too repetitive! Similar sentence structures are okay if it's not more three or more in a row – that's when it becomes robotic and stoic to read. For example:

I certainly noticed...

I suppose, until then...

I made sure...

All three sentences follow a similar structure – a pronoun, followed by the verb. And the pronoun is the exact same in all three. I suggest changing it around a bit more – don't be scared of subordinating clauses and conjunctions! 

Plot + Originality: 4/5

Currently, it feels like quite an easy-going story without an overwhelming amount of tension (though there is definitely some action here and there!). There in minimal conflict between our protagonists, and it actually suits Valentine's quite nicely – it feels a bit like I'm reading a slow-growing romance. I'll admit, I was a bit weirded out by the twelve-year age difference initially, but they both act so sweet and naïve at times that I'm warming up to it.

Anyways, with the introduction magic and comparing it to learning how to read, I'm hoping more on that will be expanded and fleshed out. Right now, it's nice seeing the societal pressures that are holding everyone back, and I'm looking forward to Varath learning how to become more independent and thoughtful.

Also, there were definitely some surprising moments. I was not actually expecting to meet Varath's mother and uncle, and I look forward to seeing what they bring to the story – especially now that they've mentioned something about his father that isn't instantly revealed to the reader. Additionally, now that Varath is sort of free, but also, definitely not really free from his original master, I'm curious to see what happens! 

OVERALL SCORE: 18.5/25

What a fabulous story to read just before Valentine, honestly. Speaking of Valentine, sorry for the delayed review – spontaneous date is spontaneous. That aside, make sure you watch out for your comma usage, and you should be good to go. I hope this review helps!