A Bit About the Author:

AuthorishNicole is Wattpad star and 3x featured author who was shortlisted in the Wattys 2018. She writes mainly historical fantasy, and also has a booktuber channel where she discusses writing and writing tips. She also loves coffee and Disney. 

(Okay, just a note here, I do apologize for taking months to do this, lol)

Title: 

Having finally finished the book, the title now makes total sense. It's simple and not very interesting, but it does sum up the book fairly well (which is what a title's supposed to do). I just feel that it could be more interesting, personally. I'm not sure what else to suggest though, haha. 

Cover:

I like the colouring and the type is easy to read. I dislike the lens flares as though as they are so bright they distract from the actual cover. Maybe if the vibrance of those was lessened or something. It hurt my eyes to look at it, lol. 

Also, I had made this story for a contest but it was for some Celtic fantasy thing so I thought your book was some medieval fantasy for SOME STUPID REASON *smacks head*

Blurb:

It's... Too long. For a blurb at least. It's more of a synopsis more than anything. Reading it, I felt like it would be best as a paragraph pitch thing to agents instead of a blurb because it gives away too many details for being a blurb. As a reader, I don't care about these details because I haven't even read the book! As a potential agent, yeah, I care, but as a reader—especially on Wattpad—I don't. I would encourage you to shorten it and make it more interesting. It never hurts to be dramatic. ;) It's far too long and boring as it is, which is sad because it doesn't do your story justice as a blurb. 

Anyway, moving on. 

The Good: 

I can definitely tell that you've definitely spent time researching for your book. As a history nerd, this made me happy. (Aside from my constant questions to refresh my memory; this era isn't my strong point, that's ancient history haha). I also really enjoyed your details with dialogue and what I call quick details. Basically the little things here and there that really bring a scene to life without stopping for paragraph details. You also did a really good job (besides the dialogue being realistic) establishing characters. Though there were quite a lot of characters going on, you managed to keep each one separate for the reader, which I really appreciate. I'm not going into huge detail mainly because I started reading this before you edited it so things are no longer relevant etc. for the beginning so I'm just touching on major things in this review. 

The Bad:

The biggest thing I felt lacking was description. You did a lovely job with characters, voicing, Sarah's visions and lightening powers, but in general I felt that it was lacking. It was like a basic backdrop for a stage when I really wanted a full film set. I would really like to see more details in your story as scene settings. Especially in the Native American village! I didn't have so much a problem of the Puritan village, but I really would have liked to see more specific details about the Native American village; though I know enough from history studies, not everybody does, and I would still like more details in the story. I felt that it was really lacking. 

I would also like to see more descriptions with people. I have great voices in my head from each of them, but I lack faces and appearances to go with them. It's just a blank. Might be my fault from taking so long to read it, but regardless, even little reminders here and there can easily be worked in without destroying the flow of the story and still keeping the characters' appearances fresh and constant in the reader's mind. 

One last thing, and this is mostly grammatical. Not sure what grammar schooling or what not you were taught, but I've always been told to begin a new character action (that is when it's switching between characters) in a new paragraph. Many times I would see so-and-so do one thing and then Sarah does one thing, but it's in the same paragraph, which is incorrect. It also made it confusing to read. I'd definitely consider fixing this. 

What the Reader Thought:

Aside from my critiques above, my main issue with the story is the stereotypical Puritans-are-a-bunch-of-meanies thing. Now before anyone loses their rag at me and starts raving, let me finish. I understand this has a point and I definitely agree that these types of people existed and still exist today. However, while there's a lot of hatred against them, I don't see as much depth about the beliefs of the Natives and you should definitely try to incorporate more of that as it would give your world-building more depth. We see a lot about the Puritans, but not so much the Natives and they deserve a voice too. 

That said, my main issue with the Puritan thing is that not all Puritans were like that. Granted, some were, but not all of them. But most people seem to think they were. I personally would like to see maybe just one or two people who were truly godly Christians who loved and cared about and tried to help the Native Americans because that's also a part of history that did exist and often gets overlooked in this kind of literature. But that's just me and my opinions. ;) 

As a whole, I enjoyed reading this story and do apologize for taking so long to finish it. Life... happened. But anyway, good job, and best of luck with the Wattys! 

Score: 7.5/10