A Bit About the Author:

absterak is a Christian writer with a love of piano, food, and proper grammar. This is her first time participating in the Open Novella Contest! 

Title:

I love the title. It's very poetic and the main reason I wanted to read this entry—besides the prompt, of course! My only critique is that I believe the "this" in the title should be lowercased, but that might just be me. I might be wrong. 

Cover:

Eh, not a huge fan of the cover. There's far too much going on and it doesn't interest me. (Btw, if any of you need covers, my shop is open and I'm on school break this week allegedly. xD) It's far too cluttered and needs to be cleared up. The type is covering the image and doesn't really tell much about the story at all. 

Blurb: 

Perfect. I have nothing to say on this. I love it the way it is. 

The Good: 

Okay, this is a novella. Which means it's going to have a much faster pacing than a novel. That being said, the pacing was very delicately handled and it provided a very beautiful story. There was action involved without it being too much going on, and the relationships in this story were well-executed. More on that later, though. I really enjoyed your take on the prompts too, which made for an interesting read for sure! The grammar was good—I don't recall seeing anything serious enough to catch my attention, so kudos for that. 

The Bad:

The pacing. While it was good for a novella, it did feel rushed in some places and there were instances where I felt while I was reading that it would be better to pull things back and just enjoy the moment, especially the conversations with people like Sloane and Elias with Taylor. While there was some of that, I felt that there could have been more. If you ever go back and edit, try to smooth things out more and add some slow stuff so that the plot doesn't feel like it has to be constantly moving. ;) 

What the Reader Thought: 

Okay, first off, Elias stole my heart. He is such a cinnamon roll and while reading it I kept thinking of one of my characters from Princess of the Highlands Trilogy. (Yes, POTH readers, I'm talking about Malcolm. The Cinnamon RollTM). I think they would get along swell. Elias is absolutely adorable and probably my favorite character, and his emotions and reactions to everything were perfect. Taylor as well was a very believable main character and I enjoyed getting to see her struggles with accepting the past and moving on. I enjoyed this story a whole lot more than I expected I was going to and I'm really rooting for you in the ONC. I really hope you make it far! This story is a gem! 

Score: 8/10