Title: Winning Over His Heart

Author: SunshineBandito

Reviewer: ray_of_sunshine9

Summary: 5/5

A really intriguing summary! I think you've encapsulated the mood of your genre and story really well – it's clearly a romance, and the conflict is immediately emphasised by showing how each characters are about to go against what is considered their 'norm'. It almost reads like a movie trailer, in that it's light-hearted, easy to follow, and straight to the point. Well done! I know it's hard to talk about stakes in a summary like this, especially for a romance, but I think you've done a pretty good job at gripping the reader anyways.

Grammar: 3/5

Overall, your grammar could use a bit of polishing, but otherwise, it was very easy and fluent to read. Here are some examples, however, of errors I found:

He couldn't understand why Laney seemed to hold her breathe at his lack of response.

Breathe is the verb, breath is the noun. Therefore, it should be:

He couldn't understand why Laney seemed to hold her breath at his lack of response.

Also, real quick, sometimes you say Mckenna. Sometimes you say McKenna. Whatever you say, it needs to be consistent. You also have a few other typos, such as:

He hadn't had a full minute of silence sine meeting her.

It should be 'since.'

Next, let's talk about dialogue and punctuation. When dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'they exclaimed – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question, and an exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"Well, you are a sight for sore eyes, mon petit Chou." Cory said smiling.

It should be:

"Well, you are a sight for sore eyes, mon petit Chou," Cory said smiling.

Also, while we're on dialogue, let's talk about dialogue and paragraphing. When you have multiple characters speaking, each one should have a new paragraph for their dialogue. For example:

"I'm gluten free, vegan and vegetarian." Mr Scott said handing back the menu. "Take this away." Laney pushed the menu back in his hand leaning in a little. "I don't gloat often but I did kinda modernise the place a little." Flipping the menu over, Laney pointed to a page that took up half the space. "We have cauliflower steaks with butternut squash risotto and French bread as an appetiser. My personal favourite is the Greek plate."

It should be, with all rules applied:

"I'm gluten free, vegan and vegetarian," Mr Scott said, handing back the menu. "Take this away."

Laney pushed the menu back in his hand leaning in a little. "I don't gloat often, but I did kinda modernise the place a little." Flipping the menu over, Laney pointed to a page that took up half the space. "We have cauliflower steaks with butternut squash risotto and French bread as an appetiser. My personal favourite is the Greek plate."

Also, when a character is speaking and you're breaking it up over multiple paragraphs, you don't need the closing inverted commas until the very end, but each paragraph needs to start with an opening inverted comma. For example, you wrote:

"Laney, what's wrong? I can hear it in your voice. Kill told me something was bothering you the other night.

Is it Stone?

I can kill him if you need me to. I'm sure my Dad would help, too."

First of all, I would put that all as one paragraph because there's no need to separate it. Additionally, 'dad' shouldn't be capitalised as it is 'my dad' as opposed to 'dad' being used as a proper noun. However, if you did format it like that, it would have to be:

"Laney, what's wrong? I can hear it in your voice. Kill told me something was bothering you the other night.

"Is it Stone?

"I can kill him if you need me to. I'm sure my dad would help, too."

Characterisation: 4/5

I love Laney. Instantly, we get a glimpse of her character through helping an old woman who slipped on ice, even if she gets nothing in return. She speaks up, doesn't act completely meek (even if it's why she got fired), and even when other people are freaking out about her and Stone potentially running into each other, she's like – "small communities, I'll deal with him." I laugh every time every time she says, "I'm sorry." And so, when he says, "I'm sorry," in return, it was like a mic drop.

What I love the most is the development she shows. She stops letting herself getting walked over, and so she stands up for herself against Taylor when she makes remarks about her weight and job. But even then, she makes sure Taylor is okay because she feels bad.

On the other hand, our Stone starts out on the scarier side – he doesn't care about other families not getting income. However, Laney is making his soft side come out, ad he's starting to feel and get distracted and is suddenly interested in ramblings about Burberry coats. I also think side characters like Sarai and Portia make amazing friends who help Laney navigate through her thoughts and feelings.

The one thing I would like you to work on is showing instead of telling, but we'll get into that in the next section!

Writing Style: 3/5

I mentioned showing instead of telling last time, so I'll mention it again because I did think this impacted your characterisation. When it comes to discussing characters and their traits, avoid telling it and instead choose to show it. For example:

She grateful she had such a good friend. Though she armoured a tough exterior, nothing could blind you to the way Portia cared for those she loved.

We can already see that through her actions, with the way she's always trying to change the subject when being confronted about how she's feeling. There's no need to blatantly spell it out, because it makes the writing a bit clunky and awkward. Also:

The first floor was a lounge area with a bar a floor above.

This is from when we first entered La Rebassier. However, instead of just talking about it in such plain terms, you should consider showing it to us using the senses – what would we see, smell and hear? Tinkling glasses? Lights? Use literary devices such as personification and simile to show the setting and make the reader live and breathe it.

Plot + Originality: 5/5

So far, the plot is very streamlined and focused, and is very fluent. Well done! We've seen Laney get her job, get fired, and then there's that very interesting moment where he visits her apartment followed by the big extravagant place for dinner – which is where things turn. She's back in McKenna Industries with a solid reputation now.

Additionally, the way you show her growing feelings is also very effective – especially since, after the night where they went for dinner, he's been neutral. It's also great seeing her step up, become valuable so that even those in other companies want her and are making offers to McKenna, who is throwing them all aside because he wants her as part of his team and his happiness.

It's interesting seeing her feel jealousy, it's fun seeing the way he teases her with the classic, "I like someone, you've met her" and she's like "Who?" and so he talks about ideal dates to work out what she wants. And when she realises she's in love with him, she's heart broken because – wait, he's married? So this is looking very intense now, and I can't wait to see how they resolve it all.

OVERALL SCORE: 20/25

Overall, a really strong story so far! Just work on your punctuation and you should be good to go. I hope this review helps!