Roses Are Red

Author: TateBooks16
Reviewer: AnnikaNofal

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SYNOPSIS

"Your mine," His voice is husky as he looks down at me. I shake me head and take a step back from him only to make contact with the wall behind me.

"I'm not yours," I say, surprised that my voice doesn't shake. His hand comes up to touch my face and I immediately flinch away.

"You were always mine, you just never realized it."

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Cleo was born into a royal family, she thought she was normal but when her family realizes that she doesn't carry the family magic they leave her to die in a sewer.

She is found and sold at an auction. Cleo has heard story's about what happens to some of the girls that are sold and she cant help but worry about her survival.

When she sees her buyer she realises that survival might be impossible because her buyer is none other than the serial killer Leo Arden.

What happens though when Cleo realizes that Leo might not be as he seems?

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Title: I don't understand how the title has anything to do with the book. From what I've read, this story has nothing to do with roses. My next guess is that the author chose it because 'red' is the color of blood, and so are roses. I recommend changing the title to something more fitting for the story. This book is about romance and magic, which is something the title doesn't execute.

Cover: I'm going to be blunt here. It looks like someone took a photo off Pinterest and slapped the smallest font they could find on it and then called it a book cover. I'm positive I've seen this photo on that site before, which if you aren't careful, could end up being a lawsuit. Photos have to be licensed by the person using them unless the photographer explicitly states that the photo is free to all which is hard to know if you're getting it off Pinterest, and it's a risk I personally wouldn't take.

I can barely read the title with how small the font is, and the font that's used makes it appear blurry. The title also doesn't need to be on the cover twice. Next, the author's name should always be on the cover. You want it to look intriguing and professional. While you didn't make your cover, it's important that you don't settle. This is your brand, and it's what will draw readers in before anything else. Lastly, the photo used screams 'romance' and considering this is also a fantasy book, this should be incorporated into your cover as well. I personally prefer object-based covers, or typography for Fantasy.

Blurb: My feelings on your blurb are a little all over the place. I like what you tried to do with it, and for people who read most of their books on Wattpad, it could work. But...no one wants their book labeled in such a way that makes it sound insulting.

There are several grammatical and punctuation errors going on here. If I pointed them all out, this review would be way too long. I will go over some of the grammatical errors later, however.

Next, my main issue with the blurb is that it feels like it's being summarized to us almost like an essay. A blurb is meant to be a hook where you briefly describe the point of your story and the journey that your protagonist has to embark on to reach her goal. You're actually spoiling the story in your blurb for the readers. We don't need to know immediately that Cleo gets sold before we even open the book.

I do like the end, where you say: What happens when Cleo realizes that Leo might not be as he seems? Other than this, I do recommend rewriting your blurb without giving too much away.

Storyline: The storyline is interesting, but adding magic into it and Fantasy, makes it feel a little...cheap. In my personal opinion anyway. Cleo doesn't have powers, which means she's basically human. I don't see the point in making it Fantasy. I also didn't get that vibe while reading. It felt like a regular, contemporary dark romance set in the old ages. I do believe this story could have been really unique if you took your time more rather than rushing through it. I still don't know who Cleo is as a person. I also don't know what the plot of the story is.

Cleo gets sold to a serial killer at an auction and he takes her home. This story is obviously heavy on the romance, but there needs to be a solid plot. Romance alone, isn't a plot.

The story could use more suspense/angst. A good way to execute this is by focusing more on the character's inner monologue and details. Your story should have less dialogue within it than monologue/details. This helps to create good imagery and also helps us to get to know your character better.

For example: She starts running from her captor and is caught within the same paragraph. Build it up more, make your readers think she might have a chance at escape, and then crush them. It almost feels like you're rushing through the story and it's something readers will definitely notice.

At the end of chapter 3, we're just now learning our protagonist's name. We should have known what her name was in the very first chapter without needing to look at the blurb for reference.

Cleo makes an internal comment, stating that she doesn't think these people went to save her after all. She never thought they'd been there to save her in the first place. This is a small hole in your writing. All thoughts, actions, and words need to add up in order to make sense.

There's a serial killer in the home-setting of our protagonist. His name is known by this town/kingdom, his appearance is known, but he's still walking the streets? It seems unrealistic to me that no one has caught him yet. I also do think this is a plot hole. It doesn't make sense and isn't realistic.

Grammar: There were a lot of grammatical and punctuation errors throughout the entirety of the story. Many times, it would hang me up while reading because of this.

Immediately, there were tense shifts. A tense shift is when you start writing in either past or present tense and then switch to the opposite. This happened a lot, which made reading confusing sometimes. It's important to only write in one of these tenses throughout your book.

I do have an example of you changing tenses here: "I wonder how long it will take for me to die, Days, Weeks, months. I did not know." This is the first sentence in the book and does contain quite a few errors. First of all, I recommend placing a period after the word die. Words placed after the commas should not be capitalized. Lastly, there's a tense shift in here. You go from writing presently, to writing in the past tense. Be very careful with this.

I've noticed on several occasions where you don't use commas at all, and when you do use them, you use them to create run-on sentences. It took me a long time myself to get the hang of using commas, and even now, I still mess up sometimes. However, I've learned the basics of using them and google was my best friend when it came to learning.

Next: "I see two other figures appear. They are old men there hair grown out and beard long." 'I see' is a tell word. It's important to try refraining from using words like: See, smell, look, walked/walk, taste, and so on. Words like these pull readers out of the story and make it harder for them to picture exactly what's happening.

Next, it's states that these are old men. This is also a form of telling us rather than showing us. How does the main character know these men are old? What gives it away? These are important details that will both capture your readers and make the flow of your book smoother. Moving on, there should be a comma after the word men, and there should be their.

Their – A person's belongings. For example, their hair.

There – Refers to a place or specific statement where someone is describing something to you. Over there/ there are birds in the sky.

They're – They are.

TIP: Words don't need to be capitalized after dialogue tags/commas unless the word is a person's name, or starts with I. I'm mentioning this because it happens almost every time a comma is in place.

There were several typos and misspellings in the book. It's important to double check your chapters before uploading them because they can have a negative impact on your story. I remember one example where someone was telling your main character to come on, but it was spelled Come one. I wouldn't even bother saying anything had it only happened once or twice, but it was a reoccurring issue.

"Pretty isn't it?"He asked. There needs to be a comma after pretty, and the 'H' in He should be lowercase. This is a dialogue tag and capitalizing it makes it grammatically incorrect. 'He' also needs a space after the dialogue.

Finally, my suggestion to you is to give your book an extensive self-edit. I say self-edit, because unless it's a second draft, there will be one, and those are usually much better than the first drafts. It's easier to see all your mistakes when they're right there in front of you. I recommend reading out loud as you make these changes so that you can determine whether it sounds right to you or not.

Writing flow: The writing flow was extremely choppy due to too much telling versus showing, repetition, and a severe lack of detail and monologue. I have notes listed down below so that you can see what I mean.

Too much telling and info-dumping. We don't need to know her entire life story within the first few pages. We know that she's living in a sewer, and she says that it smells horribly, but that's a 'tell' word. We need more than that.

I look around to see that I'm in the middle of some market. More telling. What stands out in the supposed market that makes her think that it is such? Does it smell? What do the people look like? Is there food? Details are everything. Then she moves on, coming to the conclusion that it's a 'black' market. What gave it away? What was the tell/tell sign?

Here, we have some repetition which does alter the flow of your story as well: On the first page of chapter four, there are ten 'I's' used in a single paragraph. This is repetitive, makes for a bad reading flow, and cheapens the writing. I understand that writing in first person, it can be difficult not to overuse the word I, but it's important that you don't.

This book needs polished. It's important that you don't consistently repeat words, that you add more detail in to create better imagery which will also help your flow, and that you refrain from 'describing' everything to us. This makes it sound like it's being narrated, and it's not as enjoyable to read.

Characters: From what I've read, the characters are one-dimensional. Nothing stands out about Cleo. She's bland, doesn't have much of a personality, and her emotions/thoughts are all over the place which makes her contradict herself as a character. What are her hobbies? What was it like for her at home aside from being locked up in her bedroom and starved most days? Incorporating flashbacks of her time at home could have been beneficial for your story and your readers.

Next, we know nothing about Leo aside from him being a supposed serial killer who decided to drop $200,000 on Cleo so that he could own her. What does he want with her? Why is Cleo acting like she's okay being around him all of the sudden despite knowing that he's a murderer and that she's stuck with him?

An example of contradiction within the story: At the end of chapter three, one of the guys says Keep an eye on her, she seems like a feisty one. For starters, that's a run-on sentence. There should be a semicolon instead of the comma. Next, Cleo hasn't done a single thing to make anyone believe that she's feisty. She's literally going along with it all, hasn't talked back, and hasn't so much as glared any of these men down. If anything, she's scared and timid—a far cry away from being feisty.

Another example that Cleo is becoming an extremely contradicting character. Pages apart, she first says that she wanted to help one of the girls from being sold but couldn't. Then, 2-3 pages later she decides that she needs to get these girls to fight back when it's her turn to be sold. Either this was a fault of the author, or Cleo only cares about herself considering she didn't care about helping the other girls but expects them to help her.

Overall: I write my reviews really straight to the point and try not to beat around the bush. Hopefully I didn't offend you in any way. These are my personal thoughts. With that being said, I do recommend re-writing the book. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to it before it's considered quality material. Don't be discouraged. I'm a published author and my first drafts aren't much better.

I hope you consider my advice and do make the necessary changes. I do believe that if you put the work in, this book could be really great.

Thank you for selecting me as your reviewer.