Abbernathy and the Cat Kingdom by OctaviaLocke.

This is the second sentence of your first paragraph.

"Broken shards of red and orange glass littered the floor around a cloaked figure, reflecting the moonlight, making the figure look as though she stood engulfed by flame."

It's a nitpick of mine, but it's not very good to repeat the same word in the same sentence with this kind of structure. Especially since at ",making the figure" you could have placed a full stop. 

As in:

"Broken shards of red and orange glass littered the floor around a cloaked figure, reflecting the moonlight. At that moment, she almost seemed engulfed by/in flames." 

Or some other way to break the sentence as you see fit. 

Now! 

That's the first simple nitpick in syntax and grammar. For this review, I decided to abandon my regular reviewing format slightly, and just jump straight in. If there are any things you don't understand by the end, please tell me and I'll explain further.

Grammar/Syntax - 3.5/5

Nitpick 1: Using the continuous tense to describe action

"Her gait was unsteady as she navigated the floor, a bundle of brown muslin cradled in her arms. Before she could reach the guardsman, the hem of her dress caught beneath her toe, throwing her forward."

At "throwing her forward", she falls. However, for an action like this which should be sudden and immediate, you using the continuous tense (throwing) makes it less immediate. Instead, you could use threw, lurch, flung, stumbled, reel, totter and so on, or generally a verb in the simple past tense to express that the action happened right then. (Or to give it more urgency!)

And again here, shortly after the excerpt above you typed: "Lain lunged toward her, catching the girl before her head collided with stone."

You used lunged here, which is in simple past and gives urgency, but then you used "catching the girl before her head collided with stone," which again, uses the continuous tense. 

I understand this could be because you want to continue the sentence, but instead of using a complex sentence structure like this (where you have the independent clause coming before the dependent, joined by a comma) a compound sentence structure can work (where you add 'and' or any other FANBOY in between the two independent clauses.

So!

This is it currently:

And with a tiny edit!

You may think this was unnecessary, but just a small edit like this can go a long way when writing full action scenes later on! A tip for writing action scenes: 

Ensure that the events unfold in "real time," allowing the reader to feel he is participating in the events of the scene.

This bit isn't only for the current review at hand, but for anyone else reading!

Now, onto this sort of run-on sentence (still in Chapter 1)

"The girl's words unlocked memories of the day he had taken his vows for the Royal Guard. The queen, young and strong; then-king Octurine standing by her side, eclipsed by her presence; Lain eagerly kneeling, fumbling over the words that would mark him for life."

I understand where you were going with this, the view I got from the excerpt was a sort of mini flashback where the observer is moving from one section of the scene to the other. Like a camera passing over the queen and Octurine and Lain. The phrase after phrase in it makes everything uninterrupted and consecutive. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I got what you intended with the style you wrote it in. 

But, I understand that semi-colons are used to join independent clauses in the place of a conjunction. Such as:

1. Janet should become a model
2. She is very pretty.

With semicolon: Janet should become a model; she's very pretty.

Above, I can't place a finger on it, but please look at it again?

On the plus, your descriptions are very well and the atmosphere you created while they were hiding in the chapel was very well done. I took off 1.5 points for the above!

Story Concept - 4/5

From what I've read so far (3 chapters – but skipping the extra) the story so far is phenomenal! The characters don't seem at all like cute cats, (which I'll get to later) and your descriptions and atmosphere creation are very developed. No qualms here, I like where the story is heading so far. 

Cover - 3.5/5

The cover is well done, but all it has are cats and a castle in the lower right. I wish it had an illustration or image of Abbernathy, since she's the first word in the title, and something more engaging and bright? 

For example, if you look at the covers of Ramona and Beezus or any other children's books, they usually have colourful creative images or illustrations – some simple and others more elaborate. 

The current cover sticks to one colour scheme – blue – with black and white thrown in. It's a bit dull, and save for the cats, it tells nothing else about what's inside the book. 

Edit: Abbernathy and the Cat Kindom is not children's adventure! That was the impression I got, but in the tags, it is Young Adult! regardless, here are some book covers I found to help,,,

Character Originality - 4.5/5

I love all the characters you've introduced so far (even Feign)! My favourite so far is between Lain and Abbernathy. The tiny voice in the back of my head wouldn't allow for full marks, though. .5 was deducted because since it's originality, I took off a small portion because while Lain was well done, he is still a character I've seen often enough. Be it a Kingsguard or Butler, someone in a lower position to serve a high-born who falls in love with them...Lain was very well done but the knight story has been seen multiple times. 

Writing Style - 5/5

I won't be pedantic here. Your style is very developed and it deserves full marks.

Pacing/Organisation - 4/5

I only took off a mark here because in the very first chapter (The Promise of Dawn) the beginning paragraphs, while introspective and informative, went on for a bit too long. I'll admit I ended up skimming some of it before the scene where Feign's army burst through the chapel doors. 

Was it enjoyable? - 4.5/5

Honestly speaking it was enjoyable from a completely scholarly point of view. I enjoyed your writing and the story as you told it. You had full control over everything you narrated. Was it my cup of tea? Slightly leaning a bit more towards neutral than absolutely loved. 

But the story as I've read now (and a few months back) is very good, and I hope for it to receive more favour from the community!

Happy writing.

Total score: 29/35
Overall rating: 8.3 [HIGHSCORE!!]

Up next: Prima Ballerina by Tavia_Alaine.

Note:

Yes! Reviews are back! I don't even have an excuse for why it took so long to get it back on the tracks, mainly because I have the attention span of a goldfish and my level of procrastination is higher than I'll admit! My problem is not sitting down and writing these reviews – t's the most fun thing – it's making myself sit down and write them!

I won't yet commit to an update schedule, but I can assure a new review should at least be out in a week's time!

Until then?