Title: Thorn Pricked Love

Author: ajsbooks30

Genre/s: Fantasy, Romance

Number of Chapters: 31

Mature?: No

POV: Third person POV

Status: Completed

THORN PRICKED LOVE

[in the author's own words]

Morris Rossa, better known as the peacekeeper, works secretly for the kingdom of Matcha, wielding things crafted by magic. Her parents think that she is at school learning how to be a Lady in Waiting.

On the night the black moon rises, it is time to gather in the Palace of Matcha where a rose will determine a woman's lover, unifying them forever. Morris hopes that she will be united with Nyle, her friend since birth, but that is not the case, no, her unification is much worse for it was the one and only...

Now stuck with the one man she didn't want to be with, she learns just how wrong the kingdoms were about him, and now she wants justice to be shown. But as secrets unfold, she discovers that her people were right and that the stories she's heard are true.

Will she learn to love him anyways? Or will she drive a sword through his heart?

(A little bit of swearing is included)

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B O O K  R E V I E W

[Before we begin, please keep in mind that everything mentioned below is my personal opinion. My intention isn't to offend anyone; the only reason I am going into such detail is to be able to help my fellow writers out there. I do not claim to be correct; just sharing my opinion from my experience here on Wattpad. The following review is based off of the prologue + first 5 chapters only.]

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TITLE: This story's title is short (readable on every device) and simple - which is a good thing. At first glance, "Thorn Pricked Love" gives romance vibes and feels like its going to be an angsty story. The title is quite unique and catchy. Definitely made me want to check out the blurb to find out more.

COVER: Maybe this is just me but honestly, I'm not a fan of this cover. The title is clearly displayed but the author's name / username is missing and the art in the background is a bit too blurry(?) for me to figure out what it was. Is it a rose or maybe a sword piercing through a heart or a rose? Genuinely not sure and in my opinion, the font could have been better as well. You don't have to change it if you feel like this cover perfectly represents your story but I suggest experimenting with new cover styles to see what attracts readers most.

♡♡♡.5

BLURB: Apart from the cover and title, the blurb plays a major role in determining whether or not someone clicks on your story to check it out. The blurb introduces the characters and hook straightaway and I like how well you've managed to give a background (without spoiling too much about the story ahead) while also introducing your major conflicts. There might be a very few grammar / punctuation errors in this one but they're not noticeable unless someone'd really want to nitpick. The whole mystery around Morris's lover - where one line hints at him being misunderstood and another says he might possibly be evil for real - made me instantly want to read the story to find out more about him. I feel like this element of intrigue works well for this blurb.

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CHARACTERS: While what makes someone click on a story is a cover / title / blurb, what makes them stay is your plot and especially your characters. Their relatability, the whole vibe they give off and how well the characterization is done plays a huge role in a story. After all, it is easy to forget a story's title or maybe even plot but some characters stay with you even after you've finished reading the story. After reading the prologue + 5 chapters, I still feel it's too soon to comment on Morris's character arc. Her story starts out with a very interesting scene that hints at her liking forbidden things (which I believe will show up ahead in the story as well once the rose / thorn helps her find her lover) and her journey as a peacekeeper is charted out well enough too. I wish we could have seen more of her thoughts / emotions to be able to relate to her more as a character. I'm assuming it will show up in the story ahead though.

♡♡♡.5

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Judging from the prologue + 5 chapters I have read...

PACE & PLOT - I'm not sure if this entire concept of the rose and thorn uniting two lovers is original to this story or a common concept in fantasy stories (to be honest, this is the first time I've ever come across it) but I absolutely adore this idea! It is brilliant and I wished it was built upon in a better way in the Prologue. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly explained and I didn't mind the prologue being super short but I'd like if it was elaborated on a bit more, considering writing a novel calls for descriptions at times. I'm not sure if it was the way the whole process was merely stated out technically or the word choices but this prologue has a lot of potential at the moment and can be made much, much better in my opinion.

Due to the heavy and gradual worldbuilding chapters, I haven't been able to reach the core of the plot yet (in the first 5 chapters; by which any potential reader would decide whether or not they wish to continue reading this story) but the scenes and the whole world-building felt super intriguing + adventurous and made me curious as to what would happen ahead once the rose would pick Morris's partner in the ceremony.

DESCRIPTIONS & WRITING - Your writing creates a wonderful imagery and your descriptions and world-building are on point as well. At certain times, I felt like you delved more into the tell instead of show (referring to the show v/s tell writing technique). Your writing is very descriptive overall and I like how subtly you try to add more world-building into your dialogues - a good way of giving facts to the reader without info-dumping.

Maybe this was just me but I found it slightly confusing in the first few chapters as to who was speaking when because a dialogue said by X person was followed by actions of Y person. Using a simple example to explain: Instead of *"But I love the sky." Morris looked up at the thunder in awe.* there were many instances where the sentences turned to *"But I love the sky." Her father sighed.*. This somewhat creates small gaps in processing a scene that has a lot of dialogues since a moment of pause is required to figure out who is talking and who is doing a certain action. From chapter 2 onwards, there are a lot of dialogues happening one after another. I suggest breaking them up with simple descriptions (surroundings / emotions / actions etc.).

GRAMMAR & PUNCTUATIONS - I am assuming the Zuki's grammatical errors are intentional in this story, please correct me if I'm wrong about that. I am not here to edit and pinpoint small mistakes (a simple run though MS Word or Grammarly can do that) so I'll be saying this from a reader's perspective - the kind that don't intentionally try to hunt for mistakes. Other than Zuki's dialogues overall, I felt like were a very few (if any) grammar / punctuation errors but as said above, all you need is a quick run through MS Word or similar software to solve them.

READIBILITY & AESTHETICS - Most paragraphs in this story (from chapter 2 onwards) are way too long (they could easily cover 2 scroll-screens on the app). This not only dissuades readers from leaving inline comments but also makes it slightly unpleasant to read from a reader's perspective (the one who is being newly introduced to your story and this fantasy world for the first time). Especially because in contrast, there are a lot of dialogues that are just one sentence long. I recommend working on the spacings and paragraphs keeping the above in mind to create some uniformity.

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Wishing you good luck for this story *_*

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