Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm Knight Hardy here on a mission to ensure that all works on YWS has at least two reviews. You will probably never see this but....Imma do this anyway.
First Impression: So this one works out really well as a prologue. It’s got some very mysterious references scattered about and you really do a wonderful job of building up a lot of suspense with that you’ve got there. For what it is meant to do it does a really good job and if this was written sometime more recent I would definitely have been waiting eagerly to find out more.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Danica Holden was perched high in the warmly scented evergreen tree her eyes dancing over the words printed on the page of the book. But she wasn’t there. No. Danica was lost within the great Sapphire City singing with gypsies for the sheer joy of it.
Now that's a lovely setting that you've got right there. A great place to start off a story with. It's definitely got a really neat little description and it tells us a little bit about the character as well so that's double the points.
Her legs swung back and forth under the branch as the magic within the book held her seated even as the light outside began to fade and the tension of the story continued to build on top of itself as she was chased down the streets. The beat of her heart was audible in her eyes.
That sounds like a pretty cool book there. And that seems like a really nice experience. One thing is that maybe you meant "audible in her ears" and not eyes because you don't really hear things with your eyes.
“By Carmen’s feet,” she hissed a line from the book. Disappointed to have left off at the climax of the novel, Danica closed Gems of the North and tucked the book into her lager-then-normal pants pockets.
I already sense worldbuilding from the pretty unique exclamation that you've got there, or at least I've never heard it before so I think its unique.
With routine precision, she jumped down from one branch to the other. That was the reason she crossed town just to perch in this one specific evergreen. It was about sixty feet high at the very top where the branches were thin and young. But about three yards down, the branches began to cascade in the manner that only stairs seemed to possess, making the tree an amazing place to read.
That's a lovely description that you've got there but it seems a little bit off there with the flow. Its like there's this cool action with her jumping from the branches then it just gets interrupted by a pretty long description.
At the ground, Danica dusted off several shards of clingy bark and started walking east. Normally she would have had her bike with but it was in the shed with a flat tire. She suspected that it had been one of her six brothers. Danica was the middle of seven children and currently the oldest at home. Three of her brothers were away at college.
Well that was a pretty nice way to describe her family and let us know what sort of characters they are.
As she walked, she began to imagine herself back in the Sapphire City dancing again. The music became so real and buzzed in her ears, thrumming to her heartbeat.
“Why can’t I be there? Why can’t I be there with the magic of the city at my fingertips?” Danica whispered her wish.
Ohh well that is hinting at some neat backstory there.
She was standing in the middle of the crosswalk when the 76 Mustang with a flaming red paint job blazed around the corner. Everything moved in slow motion as Danica let out a scream as loud as the blaring horn and screeching brakes.
The impacted threw her back and pain wracked her body. Her head connected with the cement with so much force. Everything went black.
OUCH. What a scene to end on there. Well that is definitely the sort of ending you want to see in a prologue. It instantly makes you want to find out what happens next and gets you hooked and its just such a well executed cliffhanger.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall I really liked how you developed this world that appears to be mostly a modern one but also containing magic if some of the descriptions were anything to go by. You’ve really done a great job of conveying that setting and also referencing some other places that seem important. Hoping that I run into more chapters of this as I scrounge among the depths of All Literary.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Points: 253363
Reviews: 4096
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