Title: Parth Probodhika: Pristine hues of his peace by dwarkaratna
Source: ELGANZA, INC. | AWARDS by TheCieloCommunity
Category: Romance
Mature: N (mild swearing, sexual references)
LGBTQIAP+: N
Status: Complete
Special note (judging): I had 5 books from this category, and the other judges (silksutra, Hopeless_roMINtic, Annonymouscreator) had 5, 5, and 6 books, respectively.
Score: 78/100

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*****

Rubric:
- Title: 5
- Book cover: 5
- Description (blurb): 5
- Plot & storytelling: 15
- Character development: 10
- Writing style: 10
- Grammar: 10
- Originality & creativity: 10
- Emotional impact: 10
- Pacing & structure: 5
- Accuracy (if non-fiction): 5
- Overall enjoyment & engagement: 10
Total: 100

*****

Total: 78/100

Title: 3/5
This is a good title that sparks my interest, but you should capitalize the full title. The only word that may not need capitalization is "of," but it's not wrong to capitalize it, too.

Addendum: After I started reading, I realized this book is part of a series. The reader doesn't know that until they get into the book, though, and that would be a nice thing to know right up front, along with a note of which book they should read first, if they want to read the series in order. So, I actually would recommend putting the series name in the title and cutting the section after the colon, since that's more of a subtitle, anyway, and having it on your cover is enough. It looks like this series is called Yadav Jyoti or Subhadra? Whatever it is, I'd put that, add a #_____ (insert whatever number book this is in the series), and then do a colon, followed by "Parth Probodhika." That makes it really clear right up front, both for new readers who would prefer to start with the first book in the series, and for returning readers who finished the book before this one and want to know which book they should read next.

Cover: 4/5
This cover is beautiful. I love the colors, the imagery, the flower unfolding, the hearts above it, the crown above that, the font choice, size, color, and placement—almost perfect. The only issue here is that your name doesn't blend well with this cover. I'd recommend playing with font style and color to get it to match everything else better. But, otherwise, beautiful.

Blurb: 2/5
So, my first suggestion here would be to move the poem down below the actual blurb. When a potential reader comes across your story and clicks the title to bring up that pop-up box, you want them to read the blurb, not the poem, because the blurb is what hooks and draws them in.

Second, there's a lot of awkward phrasing and wordiness here, which I think is mostly a language barrier issue. Some of it I understand, some of it I don't, but I'll do my best to suggest ways to clarify your intended meaning.

To start with, the analogy of love as a penance, or a punishment or atonement, is strange to me, and I'm not exactly sure that's the meaning you want to convey. I'll kind of get into this with specific examples as I go.

"When we attempt to get that in our name." I don't understand that. What is "that?" Is it love? Is it penance? Is it something else? What do you mean by "in our name?" That makes me think of claiming ownership of something, like when I buy a car, I put it in my name. Are you trying to say love is a punishment we have to endure if we try to force it? This isn't clear to me.

I'm pretty sure you mean "phase" instead of "phrase." "Phase" is a time period, but "phrase" is the way you order words.

"Gets extended when we need to face challenges to ensure it's presence." First, "it's" should be "its," because that's the possessive form. "It's" is a contraction of "it is" or "it was." So, I know you're talking about lengthening the phase of penance, and I'm pretty sure I understand the rest of the sentence, but it's a bit jumbled. I think saying something like this would be better: "and the phase of penance lengthens when we face hard times." That's a much more concise way of saying this, and it implies that we're working through the hard times to keep the relationship intact, eliminating the need for you to add in extra words that cloud the meaning.

The next sentence feels strange to me, because it sounds like you're saying Arjun has been working to win this woman's love in order to punish himself. That's not exactly romantic. It makes it sound like this is a toxic relationship, and he loves a woman who probably doesn't love him and only wants to hurt him, especially since you go on to say winning her has only ended one phase of his punishment and marks the beginning of the next phase. As far as the actual sentence structure, this would be clearer: "After many years, Arjun succeeded in finding love." The next sentence is fine, but the comma after "Surely not" should be a period or a semicolon, and saying "it's just one phase completed" is clearer and more concise.

The next sentence/paragraph is pretty jumbled, too, and I'm not clear on the meaning in the second half, but this definitely conflicts with the idea that she's punishment for Arjun. Here's a way to clean up the first part: "Subhadra pledged to preserve peace in Arjun's life, but she was unaware..."

And I don't know the rest. "She has to face the cold war against a situation which seems calm, but has severity as its companion." "Cold war" makes me think, in a literal sense, of the actual Cold War between the Soviet Union and the US, and in a metaphorical sense, it makes me think of passive-aggressive conflict, especially when two parties refuse to talk to each other (the silent treatment). I guess that could seem calm from the outside until you realize they're not talking to each other because they're angry with each other. "But has severity as its companion." What is "its?" Is it the cold war? The undisclosed situation? "As its companion" makes me think in a literal sense of someone bringing a companion with them, so I guess metaphorically, you're probably saying severity comes hand-in-hand with whatever "it" is. "Severity" itself is the noun form of "severe," which means very great, intense, strict, or harsh, so that seems to go along with the whole love is punishment thing. If I'm guessing your meaning correctly, saying "but is intense" would make more sense here.

The next line could also be clearer and more concise: "It takes time to settle into marriage before it can truly flourish."

And the same with the last sentence: "How will Arjun and Subhadra face their challenges, and will their story have a happy ending?"

So, the overall idea I'm getting from this is that Arjun and Subhadra are newlyweds facing struggles as punishment for something.

Addendum: This goes with the note from the title about the book series. Having a list of all the books in the series at the very end of the blurb would be nice for new and returning readers to reference.

Addendum 2.0: After reading the story, I'm guessing the penance thing comes from Arjun's exile in the previous book, especially given the tension with Draupadi when he and Subhadra arrive to his home for their wedding, but I still think rephrasing here to clarify that it's not a toxic punishment thing but a peaceful atonement would be a good idea.

Plot & storytelling: 15/15
I feel like I'm at a distinct disadvantage here because I haven't read the preceding book, and I certainly didn't have time to go back and do that before I read this, but it's very clear that you have a complex plot in play here. You mentioned an epic in the preamble/prologue stuff, and I'm not sure if you meant you're modeling this after a known epic, or if you're creating your own epic, but either way, you have created your own epic. There's absolutely no way this would work as a single book. It's a series, through and through, and this book is very clearly part of a larger body of work. You know where you came from; you know where you're going; and that's all communicated through your intricate story.

Character development: 10/10
Again, I'm at a bit of a disadvantage here because I didn't get the introduction to the characters I would have if I'd read the previous book, and you did mention in the character list that you wouldn't spend much time on character development for previously introduced characters, but they still got their fair share in the spotlight. Your cast of characters is long. Very long. And they're all unique, and they're all distinct. Kanha's mischievous nature caught my attention right away, and Draupadi's complex feelings about Arjun's exile and marriage to Subhadra unfolds in a very relatable way to the reader.

Interestingly, I feel like the story was told more from the side characters' POVs than those of the protagonists, but that doesn't feel wrong. Subhadra, in particular, is obviously central to the story, but I learned more about her from others than from her telling me about herself, if that makes sense. The story revolves around her, and her importance in the lives of all the people around her comes through loud and clear. She's sweet, intelligent, charismatic, humble, playful - whatever she needs to be, she is. And, of course, she's Arjun's peace.

I feel like more was told from Arjun's POV than from Subhadra's, but again, even more was told about him than by him. But that works. I wouldn't change a thing in that regard. The protagonists are still the protagonists, and they don't have to be the only character POVs telling this story to demonstrate their importance.

Writing style: 8/10
You have a very unique writing style. I've never encountered anyone including blurbs from the protagonists in the prologue info, as if the protagonists are speaking directly to the reader, not in narrative form, but it's so natural. Your handling of physical attraction and physical intimacy is very tasteful and well-done, and the little moral or bit of sage advice, whatever you want to call it, that you use to start every chapter is thought-provoking and sets the stage for the rest of the chapter.

My main critique here is with the flashback scenes. You regularly break the fourth wall by stepping out of the narrative to talk to the reader directly, which is fine, but doing that with flashbacks really jars the flow of the story. Instead of saying, "So-and-so went into a flashback," and then adding a line saying "Flashback," I think it would be better to just add a section divider, like you do with any scene change (although maybe having a different section divider for flashbacks would be a good idea), and write the flashback without telling the reader that's what you're doing. Putting the text in its own section and changing it to italics tells the reader what's going on without using words that break the flow of the story. At the end of the flashback, again, you don't need to say "End of flashback." Just put a divider and start the next section of the text.

Another suggestion I have is about how you write thoughts. Putting them in double quotation marks like dialogue makes them look like dialogue. My suggestion here is to just remove the quotation marks and italicize the thought, still following the other rules of dialogue.

So, instead of: "This isn't working," she thought.

This isn't working, she thought.

That just makes it clearer for the reader. With just a glance, they know what you're doing, what's actual spoken dialogue, and what's silent internal monologue.

Grammar: 2/10
The biggest issue here is just the language barrier. As I discussed with the blurb, phrasing and word choice are often confusing and unclear, although it became easier to follow as I continued reading your story. It's kind of the same thing that happens to me when I read something that Charles Dickens wrote. His older English language and writing style feels foreign to me, and I sort of learn it as I read it. But it is offputting, and without a reason to push through, I know a lot of people won't make the effort, which is a shame, because you have a beautiful writing style and a beautiful story here.

Your punctuation is generally solid, but dialogue is a consistent issue. Keeping the speaker's words and actions together makes following a conversation easier for the reader. You usually write the dialogue, close it with a comma, and then write about the next speaker's words or actions, which gets confusing. Also, you should only close dialogue with a comma if you're leading into a dialogue tag, which tells who the speaker is and how they're speaking. So, for example, this is what I see you doing:

"This isn't working," Arjun laughed and shook his head at Subhadra's statement.
"Subhi, it's working fine," Subhadra smiled reluctantly.

And this is what it should be:

"This isn't working," Subhadra mumbled.
Arjun laughed and shook his head. "Subhi, it's working fine."
Subhadra smiled reluctantly.

Pronouns were another occasional issue, I think, although I also think that was only in the beginning chapters, so it could have just been that I didn't have a handle on which characters were male and which were female yet. I think there were a few areas where he/him was used for a female, and vice versa, but, again, could have just been me not understanding what was going on yet.

You should also use articles more frequently (a, an, the). There are times when you use a noun that should have an article in front of it, but it doesn't. I can't think of any specific examples right now, but if you look up articles, you can probably find examples of when to use them and when not to use them.

There are a few slang words you use frequently, and while they're fine in dialogue, because people don't always speak using proper language, you should spell them out in the narrative. "Gotta," "gonna," and "wanna" were the most common ones. I can't think of any other ones right now. But in narrative, they should be "got to," "going to," and "want to."

When you end a sentence with several periods to create that trailing off effect, you should actually only use three. That's called an ellipsis (...).

There were some words that you mixed up pretty consistently. You used "haunting" when you meant "hunting" and "afforestation" when you meant "reforestation." Maybe there were other words, but those are the ones I can think of right now. Oh, and the chapter when you were talking about the sword and its "holder," the word you're looking for there is "sheath."

And then there are words you use in a way that lines up with what they technically mean, but English is weird, so you actually need to use them differently. "Hairs" is one of the biggest examples here. "Hairs" is plural for "hair," obviously, but the usage is actually flipped. "Hair" encompasses all the hairs on a person's head (or in their beard, or whatever), so when you're talking about Arjun caressing Subhadra's "hairs," you should actually use "hair." It's weird, but "hairs" is used mainly when talking about one or two or just a few hairs, like I look in the mirror and I glare at my gray "hairs." I'm only glaring at a few hairs, because my hair is overall brown.

"Pecked" is another fun one. It means a light kiss or a bird pecking something with its beak. If you say Arjun "pecked on her cheek," that makes me think of a bird pecking something with its beak. To get the right meaning, you'd move the preposition, so he "pecked her on the cheek."

Yes, English is weird. I apologize. 😅

Originality & creativity: 10/10
Well, I think I covered this pretty well in plot, storytelling, and character development. Oh, but I didn't mention world-building. You have this massive world with multiple kingdoms, complex politics, a pantheon of gods and goddesses watching, interfering, and influencing as they feel the need, and cultural traditions and environmental notes, too. I'm guessing you draw a lot of the cultural traditions from historic India, of which I know very little, but there's so, so much creativity going on here, even if that's the case.

Emotional impact: 8/10
As mentioned in previous sections, I entered this with a couple of disadvantages. One, I hadn't read the previous story; and two, the language barrier. But I still picked up on the sweet family dynamics right at the start, and although I didn't always understand cultural or individual roles and expectations, the emotional bond between people throughout this story is very obvious. Sibling to sibling, parent to child, husband to wife—there's such a strong emphasis on family, and although you don't use the word "love" often, it permeates every part of this story.

Pacing & structure: 4/5
It felt slow to me at first, but that may be part of me not having read the previous story and not fully comprehending your writing yet. Once I got more into the story and more used to your style, the pacing seemed appropriate.

Accuracy (if non-fiction): 5/5
Free points. Yay! 🙂

Overall enjoyment & engagement: 7/10
This is tricky for me. I will admit, when I first started reading this, it was hard, and I wasn't exactly enjoying myself. Part of that was due to external circumstances separate from your book, which, of course, I tried to keep from affecting my reading, but that can be hard to do sometimes. Life. Yuck. You know what I'm talking about. But I always love learning about other cultures and seeing new writing styles, and I reminded myself of that as I kept reading, and I did get more engaged and enjoy the story more as it went on. This is a beautiful story with a lot of merit. Language barrier aside, you have built such a beautiful, epic world and populated it with hosts of relatable characters and intricate plots, and I can definitely appreciate that.

Cultural differences make certain concepts just totally baffling to me, especially the harem marriage stuff. I have a hard time understanding how multiple women can share a husband and not get jealous of each other, especially when he clearly favors one woman over the rest. I also got really confused about the religious aspect. Are certain people actually deities, but they don't know it? Who knows what about the god/goddess stuff playing out in the background? How does that affect everything? I think that's probably explained in the previous book, but addressing it in the prologue info would be a good idea.

As far as the prologue stuff, condensing that would also be a good idea. It's pretty daunting to pull up a story and see 12 chapters of info before the first chapter even starts. Shifting some of those chapters to the end of the story would help with that. And putting the characters all in one chapter would be nice, especially since someone like me doesn't know or remember all the time if so-and-so is part of the groom's or the bride's family, which is why I'm looking it up, and having to search two different chapters is frustrating. I'd like to be able to just go to one chapter, hit ctrl+f, and search in one place for whatever name has me confused. Along with that, adding the glossaries at the end of the first couple of chapters to the bottom of the characters chapter would be good, too, since a lot of that terminology is titles used to refer to people instead of their names.

But, yes, a beautiful story with some very sweet messages about the importance of family and the beauty of love, and I'm glad I read it. 🙂