Title: When Night Comes

Author: xohrats

Genre: Fantasy

PRESENTATION ✿✿✿✿❀

Your cover is very aesthetic. It looks more like a book of poems than a fantasy novel. That being said, it's a pretty cover. It's clean, if a little plain. I prefer it to a lot of the flashy and poorly composed fantasy covers on Wattpad that love to pop up in my recommendations and give me a seizure. 

Your author's note, though. 

You've made me immediately dislike your character even before the story begins, and I don't know why you would want to do that. You don't need to apologize or make excuses for your character. Let them stand on their own feet. If they have issues and need to be changed, then change them. With this, it feels like you're not only telling me how to feel about your character, but also saying "if you don't like her that's your problem, not on me". Which isn't a great way to start off a writer-reader relationship, you feel me?

I like your aesthetics, I like your map, I don't love your chapter banners but they're not bad. You're mostly starting off on the right foot.

HOOK ✿✿✿✿❀

I half like your blurb. The quote, I find over-the-top. It's one of those "I'm trying to establish my main character as totally ruthless and awesome" quotes that I definitely have never been guilty of.... But anyways, they're a dime a dozen on Wattpad books and Pinterest aesthetics. I'm sure there are a lot of people that will like it, but at the same time, that doesn't mean it's quality. 

I really like the rest of the blurb though. Short and sweet, but intriguing. I'm not yet sure what it means but I'm hoping you're going to follow through on those cool vague plot hints. I feel like I would have liked a slightly longer blurb somewhere, maybe in the introduction, just to give me a more concrete idea about what this book is about. But as a hook, this works for me.

And you have a prologue, which I have mixed feelings on, even though the last three books I started and am currently still working on very slowly all started with prologues. 

Hold on give me a second to re-examine my life.

Anyways, I think if you're going to have one you need to do it right and it should contribute to the story. This one definitely falls into that category. You start off with some lovely descriptions about wars and bloodshed and violence and all that good stuff. Then we have a king of autumn, which vindicates your lines about defying the seasons (I confess, I was worried it was just pretty words that had nothing to do with your story). I'm getting a fantasy mythology gods of seasons vibe from this, and I don't know if I'm right but I'm on board. 

I also love your prose. You have beautiful descriptions that don't fall into the trap of purple prose. I connected to your character right away, and I'm happy to find that she isn't waving swords around and drinking peoples' blood. Her desire for her title to mean something instead of being a figurehead makes me sympathize with her, as does her problems with her husband. I'm praying that this isn't an "evil man who tries to hold back the main character by marrying her" trope, and that instead her husband is just a dude (maybe with problems?) who genuinely loves her even though she doesn't feel the same. 

GRAMMAR ✿✿✿✿✿

You have a couple misused verb tenses, but it happens to the best of us. Aside from that, your grammar is flawless.

PLOT ✿✿❀❀❀

I feel like you're putting yourself at a disadvantage here. You have beautiful writing, a strong main character, and a well-developed world (even if the combination of gods and faeries feels like combining peanut butter and nutella. Too much of good stuff is bad stuff). But the plot hops all. Over. The. Place. Sixty years at a time!

It's not that you can't skip big chunks of time, it's the way you do it. We get one moment every few decades and then it goes into exposition and then we jump ahead again. 

And I don't even have time to really address the exposition, which throws off your beautiful scene of Freyja having to find and bury her mother and figure out how she's going to survive. I'll just say there's too much of unnecessary information too soon in the story.

But anyways, back to the time jumps. This really doesn't work, because you go back and forth between being in the moment and summarizing. It's sporadic and confusing. I think it would be much better if you could just separate the specific scenes and then lump everything else into the summaries. 

For example, rather than going from her being in her house with Rodian to working a hundred years as a servant to fighting as a faerie gladiator, you could have Rodian explain to her what she needs to do in order to get revenge for her mother and then end that scene. Give it a page break, and then describe her hundred years working for the Padats, practicing her abilities, etc. Give it another page break and cut to her in the arena. This will make it easier for the reader to keep up with what's going on, and get rid of that vertigo from being torn from one scene to the next without any sort of conclusion.

I will say that I think your main conflict (presumably having to do with this Pythia and her prophecy) is being set up very nicely and I'm invested in the story. Still, though. The pacing.

CHARACTERS ✿✿✿✿✿

I don't know if it was Freyja's POV that we got in the prologue since Freyja clearly isn't a queen in the first couple chapters, but regardless, I loved that POV and I love Freyja. You're selling yourself short by telling readers they might find her unlikeable. Some will, and some will connect to her like me. She's bitter and putting up a tough front, but she's honest with herself. Sure, she goes a little bit overboard sometimes with the whole "I hate everything except pain" thing, but I still like her.

The only other character we get to see is Rodian, whom I also like. He seems kind and loyal to Freyja. I don't know if he's going to push her to do things she shouldn't or try to exploit her for her power, but at the moment, it seems like he's a good ally and mentor to her. 

ENJOYMENT ✿✿✿✿❀

I think I've been pretty clear about what I like about this book. You're a very talented writer, your prose is gorgeous, and you've got the makings of a very intriguing plot. The only grievance I have besides the author note thing, the time jumps, and Freyja's double dose of angst is the exponential misogyny of the arena dudes. Like, sure, we get it. Men are pigs.

No seriously. We get it.

Okay okay but for real-

So far there haven't really been any positive male characters in this story besides Rodian, and even he's a little iffy. It might just be me, but it kind of bothers me when all the males are caricatures of "toxic masculinity" and it's up to the main character to bring them down a peg. 

First of all, it's over-the-top. Secondly, can't we see some positive male role models? And thirdly, it's a little obnoxious. Her attitude towards them is grating, and we're supposed to not mind it because we're supposed to hate them too, but they feel too fake for me to hate. 

But besides that stuff, I did really like it. It's the kind of story I would read on my own.

CONCLUSION:

You're a very talented writer and you've got a great story on your hands. I hope my feedback is helpful in cutting out some of the confusion. Keep up the good work!

TOTAL SCORE:

24/30