Reviewed by: ChristineAcedon

Book Title: Children of His Curse

Author's Name: Tea-pots

Cover: 9/10

First of all, wow! Your cover looks amazing. I love the color scheme, the imagery...it looks amazing overall. My only critique is the title: "Children of his" the 'his' seems to be a separate font from the other words and 'children' overlaps with the flowers making the end of it stand out just a bit less.

Title: 10/10

The title goes along well with the description that you have for your story. I think its very fitting given the scope of the story.

Blurb/Description: 7/10

Your description is intriguing and makes the story sound interesting right off the bat, however I would suggest introducing your main characters within the blurb so that we know who we'll be following throughout the story. Who is important? What are they about to face/what are they currently facing?

Creativity and originality: 10/10

I'm not familiar with Zulu culture, so I'm unable to speak on how closely this follows it, but you've created a world unique to you. I think you have a very interesting storyline so far.

Plot and Flow: 20/20

I like the way your story is going. It flows nicely, despite several different points of view, and it's not hard to follow. Your story has a lot of potential.

Character Development: 20/20

Your characters all seem to have a significant past, and you bounce between them, giving us insight into each of their worlds in a way that doesn't seem unnatural. You introduce and build them each up well and with good pacing.

Writing style: 10/10

I enjoy how you bounce back and forth between different characters' perspectives, especially as they begin to tie together slowly. That is one of my favorite ways to read a story. I feel like it really helps to build anticipation as readers are eager to see characters come together/meet.

Grammar, spellings, etc.: 5/10

Regarding dialogue, I would recommend doing a bit of studying on proper punctuation. For example:

- If the dialogue ends with a period and you say who spoke after the words, you replace the period with a comma.

o "He said to turn left at the church," Sally told her husband.

- Dialogue should always start with a capital letter unless it is broken up.

o "Exactly what," Seth started, "were you thinking?"

- When a new person speaks, they get their own paragraph. When the same person speaks more than twice, that also gets a new paragraph.

o "I know what you did last night," she sang tauntingly, pointing at her brother.

He swatted her hand away. "Knock it off. You're not blackmailing me again."

I also noticed some paragraphs that you forget to start with a capital letter, here and there, you use the wrong tense of a word, and there are some misspelled words as well. Punctuation is another issue I found throughout; missing commas mainly. I would just go through with a quick edit.

Overall: 91/100

You seem to have a solid plot/plan, and I like the writing style you use to tell this story. Overall, I'd say your biggest hurdle is going to be editing. I highly recommend trying to get someone to help you proof it, but another way to do it is to read it out loud to yourself. If you can hear it out loud, sometimes you can catch things that just don't sound quite right when you would've missed it reading through silently. I look forward to reading more of your work!

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