Book Title: The Prognostication

Author:  ShubhamKumar917

Genre: Fantasy/Mystery

Chapters Reviewed: 3

Reviewer: @MidnightKoala

Note: I will try and be as constructive and as polite as possible regarding areas that I think can be improved but still remain honest. It is not my intention to be harsh or rude but if any of my comments come across that way, I do apologise sincerely. I am not always right and sometimes my opinions may be different to yours so please do tell me if you don’t agree with something I’ve said or want to discuss further - I am more than happy to. I hope the review is helpful! ❤️

TITLE/COVER:

Your title is really good! It’s unique sounding and has a mysterious hint to it. It’s definitely interesting enough to pull me in. I am not an expert in graphics but I’ll give you my personal perspective of your cover as a reader. I love the choice of image - it really goes well with your title and the themes/vibe I’m getting from the title. It’s an eye catching sight as well. However, I do think your title is too small and doesn’t stand out enough. The author’s name is also obscured due to the choice of colour and so it clashes with the background. The writing under the author’s name is also too small to read so I don’t know what it says. I’d suggest playing around with the image (which is really good!) and trying to find a way to make the title bigger and fit in a good position. The author’s name could easily be fixed by changing the font colour to white. Overall, your cover is nice but definitely could be better to attract more readers. Consider going to a graphics shop if you want or you can experiment with this yourself! Let me know if you want some good graphic shop recommendations. 😉

BLURB:

Note: whenever I mention a quote from your work, I will highlight it between these symbols <> like so: <quote> to make it clearer where the quotes are.

Moving onto the blurb, your first line is pretty good. It’s snappy and intriguing. It is slightly grammatically incorrect though. You wrote: <Life is never an easy going, but for Max, things are even worse.> It should say: Life is never easy going, but for Max, things are even worse. You don’t require the word ‘an’.

When you say <for he is the chosen one!> it feels quite cliché to me so perhaps try and use more extensive vocabulary and intrigue the reader better. Let us know what is unique about your book and why we should read it. What stands out about the plot and storyline and makes it interesting. A lot of books have a ‘chosen one’. Why is your ‘chosen one’ different? 

When you say: <Join Max on this journey as he....> this isn’t the most professional line for a blurb. I believe this line could be taken out and it would sound much more elegant. 

A technical point about your blurb. Ellipses should always only be three dots, not four/five/six. And where you’ve written: <to prepare him for what’s coming….for he is the> here you have four dots for ellipses which should be changed to three, but also, you need a space after the ellipses before the next word ‘for’. So it should be like this:

to prepare him for what’s coming... for he is the

Your last line of your blurb has a rule of five which I believe is a little clumsy. A rule of three would work much better. Instead of saying <...the labyrinth of mystery, fear, pain, loss and agony…...> try choosing three of the five words and it’ll have a much more powerful impact. Again, a reminder to use three ellipses here.

My overall impression of the blurb is that it doesn’t give me enough information and could better captivate/interest a reader into opening the first page. It doesn’t establish the basis/foundation of your plot or hint to me about what’s going to happen. You have simply said: <he had felt he was different> and <prepare him for what’s coming> and <he struggles to find the answers.> But it’s not in enough detail and sounds too generic. I would suggest building a solid idea in your head first about what exactly it is you want your readers to know before they begin the story and what is the best way to portray that. Then try and rewrite the blurb with the goal in mind of giving just enough and specific information to pull a reader in without giving too much away. It’s a difficult balance to find but I think you can pull it off with some effort. Good luck!

OPENING:

I have to say, your first line of the prologue is pretty amazing. It builds intrigue immediately and I’m already desperate to know what happened there the previous night. Brilliant! I really liked the whole prologue - it has a very dark, eerie and mysterious vibe to it and builds a lot of mystery for the reader. It makes us ask a lot of questions and become curious about what’s going on. It’s a great opening to the story and would definitely hook a reader in and invite them to continue reading. 

TECHNICAL ACCURACY:

Overall, your technical accuracy is pretty good. I did find a few errors though. I’ll break it down for you.

SPELLING:

I didn’t notice any spelling mistakes - brilliant! 

PUNCTUATION:

At the start of your prologue, you have written: <“...they are gone, forever and ever,” tears burst out from her crystal clear eyes.> The part after the speech isn’t a dialogue tag (like ‘she said’) so you need a full stop (or exclamation mark) at the end of the speech rather than a comma and then the next word should start with a capital T. Like so:

“...they are gone, forever and ever.” Tears burst out from her crystal clear eyes.

Around half way through the prologue, you wrote: <Sorry I need to go.> This is a very minor thing but a comma after the word ‘sorry’ would help with the flow. Like so: Sorry, I need to go. 

Punctuation, in general, is good.

GRAMMAR:

Around half way through the prologue, you wrote: <He was no more in his room> - this should say: He was no longer in his room. 

At the start of Chapter 1, you wrote: <One of Max’s hand scrunched into...> - this should say: One of Max’s hands scrunched into…

Just after the above ^ I noticed you wrote: <He pushed the door open, making the least noise possible> - this is phrased slightly awkwardly. I’d suggest: He pushed the door open, making the least amount of noise possible. Or. He pushed the door open, making as little noise as possible.

Around ¼ of the way through Chapter 1, you wrote: <...was supposed to be a Max’s 16th birthday gift...> - it should really say: ...was supposed to be Max’s 16th birthday gift...

Around ¾ of the way through your prologue, you wrote: <”NO. That cannot be.”> I would suggest changing this to: “No! That cannot be.” It sounds more professional and emphasises his devastation better.

Just a few minor things I spotted. Check for similar mistakes through the rest of your book too.

PLOT/FLOW/CHARACTERS:

Your plot is definitely your strongest skill. I love your ideas and creativity and the way you portray those ideas through your writing. Your storyline is very solid and interesting so far. The flashback/dream in Chapter 1 was my favourite part - so thrilling and intriguing and you left the reader hanging in the perfect amount of suspense at the end. I especially love the little hints you’re throwing and connecting about the hypnotising girl's voice in the flashback and when it came back in the next chapter when Max heard it from the strange girl who knew his name. I almost gasped out loud when I read it because I was so shocked and it was so captivating! Your storyline is really really great. Nothing much to suggest here.

In terms of descriptions, I feel like there is room for improvement.

There was one part near the start of the prologue where you wrote: <He couldn’t control his emotions.> I feel like this line is quite simple and not descriptive enough. He just lost his best friend so he must be in a lot of pain and feeling a lot of hurt at this point. Try and show the reader how he’s feeling through his actions and use more vivid descriptions.

Another simple piece of description I noticed was half way through the prologue where you wrote: <He directly went to his home and locked himself in. He soon fell asleep.> If you absolutely have to talk about the basic events in Leonor’s life like going home and falling asleep, then I’d suggest you try and make it slightly more descriptive and detailed. It just seems too basic to me. 

Another spot where I noticed the same thing was when Leonor hears Violante’s voice and you say: <Violante laughed his evil maniac laugh.> Grammatically, it should say: Violante laughed his evil, maniacal laugh. However, again, I think there is room for improvement in this sentence and you could be more creative with your words. It sounds quite cliché as well.

These are just a few examples but I think you could definitely work on your descriptions and try and improve them throughout your whole book.

However, saying that, there have been some instances where your way with words has been beautiful. One of my favourite lines - despite its simplicity - was near the end of the prologue, you wrote: <It was a dream but more real than reality itself.> I loved this part! It gave me chills. Amazing.

I can’t say much about character development because I haven’t seen much in the early stages of your book (which is fine). However, I do like the way you presented Max and his friends so far. They connect with the reader well and you’ve done a good job of creating that effect. I’d only suggest not describing a person fully in detail and telling us a lot of information about them immediately when they make their first appearance. As soon as Julie enters in Chapter 2, you tell us who she is and what she looks like etc. It might be better to reveal this information slowly through her words and actions - it helps build a stronger connection with the character and so the reader can understand that character better. 

The dialogues are very good! Another one of your strengths. I especially liked the conversation in the prologue with Violante. It was all so mysterious but made me really curious to find out what was going on. 

OVERALL ENJOYMENT:

Overall, I really enjoyed the chapters I had time to read. Your plot is unfolding wonderfully and I can tell it will only continue to get better. If you worked on your blurb and tried to make it more intriguing, it can pull more readers in to actually read and enjoy the amazing piece you’ve written. I’d also advise you go back during editing and try to fix the minor grammatical errors - overall, your technical accuracy is pretty good so don’t worry too much about that - it’s just a few things that have slipped through which is normal for every writer. I believe your story has the potential to grow but you need to work on a few things now to get there in the end.

Once again, I apologise for not being able to read as many chapters as initially promised but I hope this review has been useful - let me know if there’s any part of this review you don’t quite understand or don’t agree with and I am more than happy to have a further discussion. Also, don’t hesitate to PM me if you ever need any more advice or support!

Good luck on your writing journey and I wish you all the very best! ❤️