Sorry for the delay, but the Romance results are now ready! Without further ado, here they are! Thank you, Call_Me_Defiance, for your hard work on these results. Contestants, please check out their shout-out chapter—it has their username in the chapter title—if you haven't done so already. They deserve some appreciation :).

If you did not win, meaning you are not in this chapter, we will PM you ASAP with your results. If you do not receive your results, you were probably disqualified, but give us some time to send the results before assuming.

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Genre Results

🌻Third Place🌻

Username - annabellacx
Book Title - Before We Bond
Score - 88/100
Review -

It states at the bottom of the blurb that you're aware of most of your mistakes, but this is a review. I may pick at something you've already heard about. I hope there's something in this that you'll find to be new, however.

First is the presentation. When reading the blurb, it's apparent there's something important about their bond, which makes sense for the word to be in the title. However, at least in the first 5 chapters, the only thing that justifies the title is when it's mentioned in chapter 5. There's probably more to it as the story goes on, but for now, it's, frankly, a weak title. Same goes along with the cover, where it's made cleanly and is easy to comprehend, there just isn't much of a connection besides the holding hands to represent the bond. I almost expect a coffee shop in the background or maybe people holding coffee. Probably not your fault, though, as stock photos are limited, but I will penalize it a little bit.

Now, I do have a critique for the blurb. Your sentences are long and don't spark much intrigue for what's being said. But, if you shortened a few sentences, that will make it sound more urgent and as if there are higher stakes. Take the first sentence of the second paragraph, for example, shortening it to: "But when she ventures to enter his life, life slaps back." We don't really need to know that he makes her heart flutter at this moment, nor do we need the "not too fast" part as it downplays the stakes. Keep the last sentence, though; that's the part that sparks curiosity.

I'm not going to say much about your grammar since you have a good grasp on it (and I understand your em-dash to hyphen situation XD. It's happened to me before, too). But, I will point out that there are a few mistakes amongst the dialogue punctuation, such as periods that should be commas, and there are some dialogue tags that could be removed.

Moving on to the actual meat of the book, I have to say, I LOVE the characters! While we can agree that everything under the sun has been written about, especially for romance, it's the characters that make it feel different. The barista and the regular, glances are exchanged, interest is established, but instead of going straight into the bad pick-up lines, it's a real conversation I can imagine people having. Not staying this hasn't been done before, because it has, but it's refreshing to see.

Back to the characters and plot, I've already established that I think the characters are genuine and feel like real human beings. The casual atmosphere is very fitting for a cafe. However, I do have to penalize the fact that I don't know the MC's name by the first chapter. A simple way you can fix this is adding her name in the blurb. Another thing I find unrealistic is that everyone loves their job, but, eh, I'll let that part slide XD.

While I know these are only the first chapters, I'm still not seeing much of the plot. Or at least, I'm not seeing much of the conflict the blurb suggested. You may want to add more stakes in the beginning to keep the reader on their toes, but I also think this is because of the shorter chapters. There was a note at the first chapter you wanted to keep things short to ease the reader in at the beginning, but some of the chapters are too short. Almost jarringly so, especially when there are two or three of them in a row. I'd try to keep it above at least 1000 words.

But overall, your characters are real, it's easy and non-distracting to read, and combined, it's still engaging enough to breeze through. A light read with deeper meanings and insights into relationships and how they start. Good job, and happy writings to you!

🌻Second Place🌻

Username - _xxAMxx
Book Title - The Promotion
Score - 89/100
Review -

Starting with the title, there are a few other stories here on Wattpad with the same name, but it's not so overused that you'll never find it. Plus, with these sorts of titles, they make you think, "What about it?" and create curiosity around it. It's straightforward yet ambiguous enough for it to not be a problem. And when paired with the cover, it's very clean.

Speaking of cover, mega-k did a very good job. The text hugs the bottom a little too closely for my liking, but I can see why it was set that way. I have nothing bad to say about it, so I'll move on.

The blurb needs a bit of a clean-up grammar-wise, but nothing terrible. The blunders don't take away from what's actually said in the blurb, and once again, I don't have a problem with it. It starts off by describing the main character before moving on to the main conflict (or at least the first conflict). The rest summarizes what happens in the first few chapters, leaving things off with a mysterious statement. Some may see this as too revealing, but I think it reveals enough while keeping things hidden.

Grammar and style-wise, there are a few consistent problems, but they're not the kind that immediately takes you out of the story. There are missing commas, extra commas, commas that should be periods, some extra spaces and missing capitalizations, and a lot of things that can be easily fixed by proofreading it. The biggest problems I saw were that some sentences had incomplete thoughts (or just had an incomplete feeling in general), there were run-on sentences, and there were better ways of portraying stumbling speech by using em-dashes. You honestly just need a proofreader/line editor, and those services are readily available on Wattpad.

(I also noticed a lack of em-dashes in general, but I know that some writing programs are finicky with em-dashes, so I won't penalize it too much. What I will say, however, is that in the future it's perfectly acceptable to use two hyphens to represent an em-dash.)

I think we can all admit that anything in the romance genre has been written before, but your story is written so well that I genuinely don't mind it. The thing that makes it different, in my opinion, is that Louisa has a more plausible reason to be torn on whether she wants to leave Calum or not. It isn't the abusive relationship you typically see that makes you scream, "Why are you still with him?" Not that the relationship portrayed isn't toxic, but it's subtle enough where the reader is also wondering if Calum is really a bad person or not, or at least, it makes them wonder why on earth Calum is acting like this. I also appreciate the fact that the billionaire isn't immediately trying to jump her bones. Instead, he genuinely listens to her and validates her woes.

I've already gone at it a bit in the previous paragraph, but your characters and plot are one of the best I've read in the genre. The dialogue is done splendidly when either being a casual conversation or an argument. I immediately felt the connection between Sarah and Louisa within the first few encounters. "Mystery guy" had me thoroughly charmed from the start (as well as pulled an actual laugh from me at the line, "I bought you a drink, I didn't ask you to marry me."), Calum is irritating but not enough for me to vehemently hate him, and the portrayal of genuine, human emotions had me hooked. All too often you see these big blowout arguments where things get smashed or abuse happens, but between Calum and Louisa (at the beginning at least), it's small spats before someone leaves the room before it escalates. I'm not saying that the big blowouts don't happen, but it's nice to see it done differently.

The plot has a nice flow to it as everything falls into place. There weren't any moments where I felt like the story should be slowed down or sped up. Not a word was wasted. As mentioned before, I really do like how the conflict between Calum and Louisa is portrayed. With Louisa being more career-driven and Calum being very laid back, you can see why they're having problems. It makes you sympathize with Louisa more as she tries everything she can to get Calum on his feet to at least give something to the relationship. While the whole "should I go for this promotion or not" continues to play in the foreground, in the background you still have the stressful home life of Louisa as she tries her best to keep the peace while also trying not to overwork herself. That girl really needs a break!

In the end, I could only read up to chapter five to keep the reviews moving, but this book left me wanting to read more. Thank you for the read, and great job!

🌻First Place🌻

Username - wildx22
Book Title - Bride Behind the Mask
Score - 92/100
Review -

At first, I wasn't all that excited about the title—I assumed it would allude to the "I have a mysterious past" or something of the like—but after reading the blurb, it made much more sense. I even thought it clever afterward since it references Amelia's behavior of acting out in hopes of getting out of an unwanted marriage. The cover also leaves me with the same feeling since the person is holding a fan, but the photo is a bit too busy for my liking. The typing gets lost within it.

The blurb could use a bit of polishing to fix some grammar mistakes and to get rid of at least a couple of sentences starting with and/but. There's nothing wrong with starting with a coordinated conjunction, but using it too much breaks the flow, making the sentences feel choppy. However, the blurb is informative and gives just enough information to be enticing, making the reader want to read what happens. How will this turn out? How do they end up loving each other? Very good questions to evoke.

For grammar and style, there isn't much wrong with it. Paragraphs could've been split better, sometimes I wished sentences were shorter to make them less wordy, but that was all when it came to technicalities. What you really need is a good cleanup since there are many double spaces, and then there are times you use a proper em-dash and times you don't. That's all for that, so moving on.

Amelia is a piece of work and needs to grow up, but I'm pretty sure you meant for her to be that way, hence why I gave you full points. Despite her major flaws, she does have a proper motive, and she's quite young—acting age-appropriate albeit very childish. As an adult, I think she's a spoiled brat, but weren't we all at that age, lol. And I have to admit, Amelia has a lot of character. Either way, I find it interesting reading from the point of view of the mean girl, and when you switch to Drake's, you realize he has his flaws as well. At the end of the day they're both suffering, and I hope in future chapters you get to see them grow and have their own redemption arcs.

Now what I really love is the fact that even the side characters have character. Some may never be mentioned again, yet you still gave them a life of their own. From Marge to Timo to the cook, they all have their own little tells and something that distinguishes them from the rest.

The plot flows well and I didn't find any areas where I wished it read faster or slower. But, it is a slower progressing plot, so I honestly can't say much on it besides that I didn't have a problem with it. The plot is very much run by the characters rather than events, but you can still see the direction it's taking. Shifting our view to the setting, however, I love how you provide explanations and what cultures you were inspired by at the end of the chapters. It really helped with providing context such as what Emir meant and how the Auspicious Calendar was used.

(I don't understand why you split the chapters, though. Why can't they just be their own chapters? But that's a personal gripe and doesn't go against your score.)

At the end of the day, I can see why this story has had so much success on Wattpad. It's well written, there's a steady plot, and the characters are well thought out. Great job, and keep writing!

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Congratulations to all of the winners! You will receive your prizes once the awards are over. :)