I have retuuuuurned. After much writing and hurting various characters, I am now ready to hurt real people.

So let's get it on!

⚠️Fair warning. I did not read through this once and wrote it on my phone with all foreseeable consequences.

Author: CelticWarriorQueen17

Genre: Historical (just because it says so in the description because wattpad no longer believes genres are important 😑 And no, I will never stop complaining about this)

Number of chapters read: 2 and a half plus prologue plus all the other bonus crap

First impression: I can't read the title. I'm also reading everything with a Shrek accent.

Cover: Your cover is visually pleasing. It is also very boring. It also differs not from your other covers. It fits something written a hundred years ago. It reminds me too much of LOTR. I like LOTR but wouldn't read it again.

I am not a fan. Really. How can it be pretty and I still don't like it??? Probably because it says nothing about your story. And makes me expect it to somehow be in elfish.

Cover rating: 😴 (I'm still doing emoji ratings. Sue me. I wouldn't. I've been to court a lot).

Blurb: I totally fell asleep. I have rarely encountered such an un-exciting depiction of war. The thing is, the story is interesting. But the blurb is SO FLOWERY. I know what you're going to say: it fits the genre, you dumb bimbo!

I take offense. I may be dumb, but I am certainly not a bimbo. There is no use for such language.

But honestly, you use words I have trouble understanding / haven't read in decades like yoke. I know it's a word. I also partially know what it means. But I'm not native English so I'm going to hate you for using it.

Yes, I'm hating on you and your perfectly accurate historical terms. Plus I have a very powerful aversion towards vague phrasing and rhetorical questions. Just no! You raising questions does not make me raise questions.

You know what actually bothers me most. There's no focus on your characters. Just a very vague reference to plot and a potential character. No, I don't want to read about peoples. I want to read about actual people (heh, I punned). Make me care for someone or I won't open the book. As much as I like history.

Blurb rating: 😩

Let's get this show on the road!

All your extra stuff: there are five parts of story that are not story. Starting with your pretty explanation about titles and crap and ending with the historical note that makes me want to flee this story.

Why?

Because I'm pretty damn sure I will have a very hard time reading it. First, I can't even pronounce the title (ignorant me), but I can live with that. What I don't get is the Scottish accent you're using.

You say yourself that wasn't the actual language they spoke but you're doing it to get a point across. Let me get one of my own.

Have you seen child 44? Or was it 47? Anyway, it's this movie starring Tom Hardy and Sirius Black, I mean Garry Oldman about some Russian kids disappearing.

Movie was okay, not that great. But that's not what I'm getting at. The thing is, all the actors in the movie spoke English (obviously) with a heavy Russian accent. This is pretty much what you're doing. And I will stop to ask why. I knew those guys were Russian. Giving them accents only made me wonder of they spoke Russian with bad English accents.

Same with you. You're just making the text hard for me to read for nothing. Yes, make the others sound outlandish, but if your MCs speak funny, you're going to lose me.

And as a result I just read everything in Shrek's voice. Not helping that your MCs name is Fiona.

Language/writing: You have a very good command of the English language. But I get that's not news to you. As stated above, the accent bothers me because it forces me to read it funny. Your language is also pretty flowery, but I see that as a marker of high fantasy. Doesn't mean you can't write fantasy or historical for that matter in a normal tone.

Moving on... I have a bit of trouble with your sentence structure. It's not basic but the level of detail in it is pretty constant. I think the flow could benefit more if you tried to vary sentence structure a bit more... Wait, what am I doing? I'm being nice??? Nope, the description is pretty identical and it gets very unexciting after the first description of a green field.

Your chapters are pretty good. The voice of your character is there. But the prologue. Oh the prologue! If I weren't as rusty as I am, I would've given up after that one. Why?

*clears throat. Where to begin?

Oh, look, random character overlooking battle and having time to focus on the damn scenery because everyone knows that's what people usually focus on. But oh, look, he's dead.

New character. Yep, focusing on scenery as well. Plus what do you know! They have time for conversation when axe wielding murder men are rampaging about.

Oh, wait. He dies too.

Nope, nope, nope.

The prologue is too simplistic (which sort of makes sense since it's a prologue and it's supposed to be short) and it brings nothing to your story. Will we even hear about F-What's his face again? Could we not have lived without thos preview? Feels just like a random way to start with action.

Nope nope nope...

Language rating: 😕

Plot: is pretty basic but not in a bad way. Even if the secret heir/battle for the throne trope has been done TO DEATH, I still love it. There's nothing I enjoy more in historical and / or fantasy than a political plot involving betrayal and overthrowing.

BUTT and that's one huge ole butt, what bugs me is that most of this potentially wonderful plot comes from your blurb. Yup. I get the plot from your blurb. Which is so not cool.

We get hints in the story, but then Fiona is like 'cool story brah'. NO! I want to see the political climate through her eyes! I want to see her hopes and dreams about reuniting the clans or what not. I want to see her actively involved not just nodding along and taking it in and that's about it.

Maybe she does later. I've only read like 2 chapters and a smidge, but I felt the need for her to consider this stuff since she heard it from Rodney (I know that's not his name, but it starts with an R and I can't go back and check).

So yes. Plot is awesome but I don't really get the feel for it. It gets lost in the moors and the shrek thalk.

Also, major thing that bothered me. In a hostile castle, blind Rodney has no trouble speaking freely about stuff that could get him kille even if he has no idea if anyone can hear him. Those castles were chock full of betrayals. Have some respect for your life, man!

Also, how she meets Angus. It's so cliche and could've been a much more fun scene if you wanted to play around with it. This way it just felt like they were both mehing out of their minds. I honestly just pictured them shrugging at each other.

Plot rating: 🤨

Characters:

Douglas:  is really dead really fast. What was the point of his half a page POV anyway? Also, doubt that the last thing he would be thinking about when dying would be breaking the promise to his sister instead of holy shit my guts are spilling out. Just sayin...

Fred (I know his name is not Fred but it starts with an F): is also very dead very fast. But thankfully in pleasant scenery. Also why is it so important that he knew about the promise to Fiona if he dies anyway? I honestly could not care less. Maybe you could make me care about one person in a prologue but never two. So I ended up caring about neither.

Fiona: is okay, I guess. She didn't have any unlikable traits right off the bat, but I can't say I'm enchanted by her either. She's like Merida from Brave. And I'm not just saying that because of the casting chapter.

Yes, she's beautiful and brave and can do awesome party tricks, but other than that, she seems very... what's the opposite of proactive? I usually call them vessels. Characters there to take the reader through the journey, waiting for things to happen to them.

I'm guessing her growth will have her turn into more of a leader and less of a meh-er. As we have it, she's not exactly the most rebellious and politically savvy girl. Which could be explained with more back story about her that is desperately needed.

Anyway, she has potential.

Angus: I know it's a legit Scottish name but I can't take it seriously for the life of me. I keep thinking of the cow.

Anyway... He's okay I guess. Didn't see enough of him to form an opinion. But I would have liked to see a bigger reaction from him when learning about Fiona.

Rodney: seems to be way too flippant for his own good. Dude, you can't see people. Exercise some caution before speaking about rebellions and overthrowing people. Seriously. You could walk into a door or off a castle wall and make it look like an accident SO easily.

Character rating: 🙂

Why I stopped reading: I think I got an actual accent from reading your work.

Grade: you get a Pass, because I can't fail someone with your grammar. Plus I admire the historical accuracy and the work you've put into it.

Do I think it could be better? Yes, much better. And that if you chose to spice up your writing by diving into a deeper POV. And deleting that godawful prologue. And maybe, just maybe, ditching the accent.