Writer: @feathers-andflames
How many chapters were there?: 8

Welcome to a review for Guardians of Mortal. My name is Sunflower and I will be your host for today. Grab something sweet to dine in. It's going to be a long journey.

Cover + Summary
Wow.

Spectacular cover and exciting blurb. No complaints here.

I have no other words to input in this segment. This book honestly looks and sounds downright epic.

Grammar + Writing Style
Your grammar is seriously spotless and your descriptions are very on point. Gotta applaud you for that.

One thing I want to mention, however, is that I don't think it's necessary to have a comma after an action before dialogue. Rather, the comma should be replaced with a period. I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about:

She sighed, "How am I going to fix this?"

Sighing is an action only, not a dialogue tag. If it were a dialogue tag, things would be different, but it's not. Therefore, that line should be modified to something like this:

She sighed. "How am I going to fix this?"

Another thing I want to note is that you forget to add the extra comma after the introduction of a character's name or title. When it comes to commas regarding names and titles, you either use no commas or two commas depending on how sentence is being structured, never one. Since this is hard to explain, I'll present to you an example of what I'm talking about. This kind of grammatical format is what I see sometimes in your story:

Caleb's English teacher, Mr. Grant lifted his third glass of golden champagne in the air and shouted, "Hallelujah, baby!"

However, it should be modified to look more like this:

Caleb's English teacher, Mr. Grant, lifted his third glass of golden champagne in the air and shouted, "Hallelujah, baby!"

For more information regarding this, I'll be happy to send you a link to an article through PM that discusses the deal with commas regarding titles and names.

First Impressions
That was a fantastic trailer that you've planted in the prologue. Really great job installing that!

Three words came into mind after reading your prologue: dark, mysterious, and fierce.

My first impression, based off your prologue alone, is a thumbs up. The only thing I would suggest is to cut the adjectives down in the second paragraph. There's an inline comment in that paragraph from a member of the Rebel BC that advises the same thing and goes more in detail with what I'm suggesting, so hopefully that helps.

Characters
Oh my gawd, I'm in love with Catia's personality.

These characters are so awesome.

Everything about them builds them up to be well-rounded and real people.

I've only read eight chapters so far, so I can't say much else, but nicely done with how the characters are handled.

Plot
The first thing I want to discuss is the sudden switch from third to first POV from chapters 1.1-1.2 to chapter 2.1. Upon encountering that abrupt change, I had to think: whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down there.

There usually cannot be a combination or hybrid of the two because having that happen leads to a lot of POV confusion. I don't think there's ever been a book that has both in it because there usually just has to be one or the other. If you can name a book with both first and third POV, I'd like to know because I've never read one my whole life.

I didn't think that was allowed because of how much confusion it can cause in writing.

Okay, NOW I see why you had the characters' names written on the top of each chapter. For a second, I was going to address the names with the following:

Upon setting eyes on the chapter after the prologue, I noticed a character's name on the top before the story starts off in third POV. I just want to mention that it's not at all necessary to put the name of the character on top of there if you're writing in third POV. You should only do that with a first POV that switches in between characters. In first POV, it's more difficult to transition in between characters, therefore making it more necessary to have a character's name stated before the start of a chapter.

I completely get that Catia is the main character and that you wanted to have the other characters' perspectives thrown in there too. However, my first impression of this story was that Anen would be the main character.

Because the story started off with Anen's POV.

But now I'm just left with this jarring and puzzling feeling after that uncalled POV switch. It just doesn't sit right because I felt completely mislead by the direction of this story.

I'm learning so much about Anen already, like about her family and what her personality is like, only to be thrown into the loop and realize that she's not actually the main character.

I want to implore that you to just either have everything be in third POV or just stick with Catia's first POV or, if you're going to switch between less than 2-3 people, keep whoever is talking in a certain chapter's name on the top and use a first POV that switches in between them. Everyone's perspective can be featured and switched around more easily and flexibly with those options.

However, I'm not in charge of your life, so I won't force you to change anything.

Another note: third POV can feature a character's emotions and feelings to the audience just as well as first person if the characters are as in depth and beautifully crafted as yours, if that's what you're worried about. Also, I don't think the POV changes would be confusing in first person between three characters. I've seen it done between three characters successfully, it's definitely possible.

I'm sorry, but the third POV and first POV experimentation was a no for me.

As I'm moving onto the next topic, I'd like to say that I love how smoothly everything is progressing. There's literally no issues with the story that I can detect so far. Like none. The pacing is steady, everything is coming along fine. None of the characters fell flat, they have depth to them, and their interactions with each other are realistic.

Wow. Here's some gold stars for you.

Things I Liked
1. In the chapter 1.1, I liked how you naturally introduce the readers to Anen's life. Being flung and immersed into this world felt so smooth and easy.

2. Dang, Skye and Catia's introduction was dazzling.

3. Even though I cringed upon encountering the first POV-third POV experimentation in chapter 2.1, I appreciated the elegant explanation given to me about the Greek gods and demigods by Catia.

4. "That looks like a hellhound vomited on a plate."

Ha! I cracked up after reading Catia's interaction with Skye in the school cafeteria.

5. Catia's excitement for hunting is endearing.

6. The way that Catia took down the hellhound was so thrilling! Loved the details you used to incorporate the fluid action scene.

7. I loved the way Catia teased about Skye's possible feelings for Anen when she got back from her hellhound hunt. She's such a jester.

8. Skye's meeting with Anen during the back-to-school bonfire was smooth until Anen's panic attack upon discovering the truth. I think Anen's reaction  felt genuine and realistic. It's normal to be scared.

9. Nehera and Ryder's introduction was so natural. Well, not the part where they were randomly at Skye's house, but just their presence in the story.

Conclusion + Grade
Do I need to go on about how much I admire this?

You're off to a fantastic start so far with this fantasy and action-packed story. You seem to have done your research on the Greek gods and seem well-informed on how to craft demigod characters coming from mythological origins.

Your writing style is very efficient in carrying out the steadily progressing plot line and there's almost no errors I can detect regarding the grammar.

With that, I give you a score of 9 out of 10.

Thanks for submitting your story to this review shop. Have a berry nice day.