OVERALL SENSE: Your romantic story for an older couple was good. You've created some real character's that all of us can relate to or know someone like them. Miss Nadine and Uncle Mason have feelings, still young enough to find true love, and it seems like they did. They met at a big family get-together and hit it off with Uncle Mason calling more of the shots than unsure Nadine.

         TITLE APPEAL: "Diamonds In The Rough" is the title. I feel this is a good title for your story, it matches the plot and the characters, without giving too much away. You do know it's going to be a romantic story, not realizing that it's going to be an older couple.

         STYLE/VOICE: The style is Romance/Love, Comedy, and definitely Satire.

The voice stays strong, concentrating mainly on Miss Nadine. She's a heavy set woman that keeps a clean house, is a great cook, but the family plants her chair in the ground where she stays the duration of the party. The kids make fun of her. Well, she can be scary to the little ones, especially if she bares her teeth at them.

         TONE/MOOD: The tone is impatient on Miss Nadine's part, she was getting hungry. Her description is very familiar to me, I've had aunts that fit that description. So incredulous fits this story, and very straightforward, no secrets to behold, Uncle Mason won't let it. He seems to be very open and entertaining.

The mood is pensive, a little suspenseful on what is going on, and tense in certain situations.

         SCENE/SETTING: The scene and setting starts out on the lawn of someone's home, a family party is going on, and everyone wants to make sure Miss Nadine's satisfied.

         CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: Miss Nadine seems to be a special relative everyone caters to. You can't really call her delightful, but she is a colorful character that I could picture.

Uncle Marvin is a friendly guy, enthusiastic, and can be vey loving in his actions. If he likes something, he goes all out to show it.

Personality: Miss Nadine is frightful to the little ones, not too outgoing to anyone at the party, I feel she's is more of an introvert. Not religious, but I think that will change.

Uncle Mason is simply delightful, thoughtful, and I wouldn't mind having an uncle like him. He seems to know how to be welcoming and warm. A true, confident and amusing person. He was religious, saying a prayer of thanks for his food.

Motivation: This is a romance story, the two people that find each other is Miss Nadine, and Uncle Mason. Miss Nadine sure looked him over when he was coming towards her with her plate of food. I think that was a sign she was looking at him different from other men.

         PLOT: The sequence of events leading to the "why" things happened continued slowly but surely throughout the story. It drew me into these character's lives and helped me understand they still had romantic feeling and it showed.

Structure: Plot structure — I was introduced to the important background as to the information about the setting, dialogues, character's thoughts, background details, along with some great descriptions, and narration.

Conflict: The conflict was mainly within Miss Nadine. She wasn't sure that she should have invited Uncle Mason over. Her self-confidence was slipping.

}Climax: The point of greatest tension in a story was when Miss Nadine was waiting for Uncle Mason to arrive at her house. She wanted everything to be perfect and was worried he wouldn't like the house or the food.

Development/Pace: Pace - Did the story serve a purpose? Did you feel as though it was introducing something still to come, or did the story seem to stall? Yes, you introduced these characters beautifully where everything, the action and showing fit together without being blaringly obvious.

Reading this story, did you feel as though you wanted to keep reading? Or did you find yourself bored and uninterested? I found this story entertaining and didn't find any parts boring. This is a drama where the storyline doesn't move fast, but you filled the slow parts with Miss Nadine and her certain traits nicely.

GRAMMAR/SPELLING/SENTENCE STRUCTURE: I didn't find any errors.

AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT: NONE Good Job!

         LINES I LIKED: Miss Nadine sat in a comfortable chair with wheels stuck fast in the lawn. Someone sprung it from the house especially for her, not 10 minutes after she arrived. Being a member of the older guests, they treated her well, at least as long as it took her to get comfortable in the chair. In truth, she wasn’t that old, maybe sixty, sixty-five, but her hair, now covered with a Dutch Boy wig, had gone full gray. Her hips overflowed from the sides of an Adirondack chair, and her lips made space in deep jowls. A caricature of long lost days, she studied the party like a basset hound.

         WHY I LIKED THIS PARAGRAPH: This described Miss Nadine perfectly. Some people age gracefully, apparently Miss Nadine didn't. She was an older guest and was treated accordingly. A Dutch Boy Wig, I never heard that phrase before and had to Google it. Well, now I could picture her even better.

JUST MY PERSONAL OPINION: Thank you for sharing this item! This is well done, I really loved how you wrote this. Keep up this style of writing, it's so refreshing - instead of the same old love stories about a beautiful girl and a handsome boy falling in love.

Sorry about going to your blog to review your story, but I didn't know where else to review it.



Take care now, keep on writing, I’ll keep on reading,

Jeannie



My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .