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Review #4214792
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*PenB* First Impressions:

A great second chapter. The readers learned a lot more about the main character but I got the feeling that there will be other layers to him that you haven’t yet mentioned. The plot also moved on at a good pace, but it wasn’t rushed. Especially the scene at the end seemed very realistic, and the king’s insecurities which seemed to lead to the hesitation of the Lords came across well. It was easy to imagine it and picture the characters. The different personalities were intriguing, and a couple of the Lords came across as more decisive and powerful than the king. This, in turn, made it easy to understand his lack of confidence, as did his doubts about Lady Eirlyn.

This chapter started a little while after the first one ended; possibly a few days since Ele was ‘counting the days’. There was a sense of frustration on his part, both because he didn’t like his guests and because he was anxious to get on with his task. You contrasted this feeling of anxiety well with the peace and quiet of the chapel. Great bit of explanation why the Korrian people paint their eyes and nails black – you mentioned this custom in the first chapter and it was nice to understand why they were doing it.

I have to admit, I got a little lost with the myth that surrounded the god and his brother. Perhaps I’m lacking some background information, but when you said that

Ele didn't quite understand the part about a battle fan

I was with him. I’m not sure if this part worked – if even the main character couldn’t figure it out, I felt that the readers probably had no chance. Unless there was a reason for specifically mentioning that he didn’t know, I would suggest explaining it in a way that the readers can understand it; otherwise, that passage has an unfinished feel to it, like you didn’t know yourself. Even the following paragraph didn’t help me and I got more confused when I read,

Vivante agreed to seal him and stand watch over it so it would never shatter

I tried to get to the bottom of it because I found the origins of this god very interesting and I got the feeling that this was going to be important later, but I couldn’t quite grasp what you were trying to say.

The chapter moved on to the almost-confrontation with King Scharn, and again the Rothen king’s superiority came across well. Ele’s thoughts were quite telling there, a little childish in places, but he did quite well when there was the shuffle with the guard. However, again, I had the feeling that I was missing something there. You hinted that something was amiss, but then moved away from it, seemingly without explaining or resolving the issue. Later on, Chanin mentioned something about the guards and I got the feeling that those two scenes were linked, so perhaps the readers weren’t meant to understand at this point, but I stumbled over it at the time. I wonder if it would work better to put more emphasis on the fact that Ele was aware something funny was going on – don’t just have him decide to ignore it but maybe let him make a mental note to find out the cause of the incident later. Then, when Chanin mentions it, he could remember that he was going to look into it (if the two events are linked.) It would give a stronger feeling of foreshadowing.

You mentioned alchemy in this chapter which, judging by the description of the novel, will become important later, and I enjoyed learning a bit more about the backstory here, how Ele came to be interested in it. That part also mentioned Ele’s sister again, and by then it had almost slipped my mind that he had a sister because she only had a small part in the first chapter, so this was a good reminder.

The part with Rilae was a little slow – there were pauses in the dialogue that weren’t filled with action and I wonder if it might work better to move their conversation on a bit swifter. You had my attention again with this line,

Not until we cleared the path and cut down trees, too

which came a little out of nowhere. At first I read it as a metaphor for, “Do what we said we would do, and then some,” but it seemed that he was quite literally referring to the felling of trees when you said, “Nobody would dare cut any further into Dirkwood.”. I went back to the first chapter to see if I missed something, because I was under the impression that they were only talking about putting an end to the attacks. I wasn’t sure if you actually meant it literally here or if I read it wrong.

Like I already said, I thought the meeting at the end worked very well and the difficulty of the decision was apparent. I also understood the details of the plan and why all four of the lords needed to work together. I liked that you kept it fairly simple at this point – I’m not great with war and battle scenes and get lost very quickly, so I fully expect to get confused later on if you describe any of the battle scenes in more detail. But for now, it was all pretty clear.


*PenO* Characters:

Ele

I felt for him in this chapter. Here, it was obvious why he thought of himself as weak, and there were so many great lines that made it clear why that was. Especially the repeated hint of his nausea whenever he even thought of a difficult situation was excellent, and you used different ways to describe and show it so it didn’t become repetitive.

But there was some deeper character development as well. The part about alchemy was excellent. There was a sense of feeling inferior because his father, apparently, was a very good and well respected king. He has issues with being young and feels he is not taken seriously. One of my favourite lines of his was this one when he was thinking about fear,

It made him think of cowering, and he cringed away from the mental image that gave him.

I thought it was quite telling that the thought of cowering made him cringe, which is also not a very brave thing to do. He’s a bit of a mess in this chapter and I got the feeling that it will take a rather dramatic event to make him overcome his insecurities. But I think what absolutely nailed it was this part,

Ele strode down the hall as he reviewed his arguments for the hundredth time in his head. It didn't mean he had a clear idea of what he would say to Lady Eirlyn, or any of the others

If his personality wasn’t clear to the readers by this point, it had to be now. I could relate to all of his issues but this one made particular sense to me.


*PenG* Suggestions:

I’ve already messed up my template by mentioning a few suggestions above *Facepalm* but I have a couple slightly more technical ones here.

the uglier things that were decided.
forget about the ugly affair

The repetition jumped out at me here.

Ele moved across the room and took his seat.
A few sentences later,
Ele moved to his seat, this time careful to adjust his cape behind him.

I’m guessing him moving to his seat twice was left over from an earlier edit. Also, I couldn’t find any reference to a problem with his cape before, unless I missed it, so perhaps that needs to be edited as well?

Problem was Lady Eirlyn still remained silent about her decision, and Lord Lirus made no move to express an opinion either. He stayed calm outwardly
At first I thought “he” was Lord Lirus but that didn’t seem to make sense, so I assume you were referring to Ele. Since you hadn’t mentioned him by name for a few paragraphs, I would replace ‘he’ with ‘Ele’ here.


*PenP* Final Thoughts:

I’m going to keep this very short since I already rambled too much. *Rolleyes* There seemed to be a lot of suggestions but mainly it’s for clarification. My biggest issue was with the god and the mythology around him, but that wasn’t a big part of this chapter. The rest of the chapter worked quite well and the way the plot developed was interesting. The ending seemed a little abrupt after the huge build-up if Ele was going to get Lady Eirlyn’s support or not, but the last line worked well.

I’m curious how this is going to develop. Having read the ‘blurb’ what the novel was about, I’m looking forward to seeing other parts of the plot develop, but I can’t imagine how Ele is going to cope with them at the moment. I’m on my way to see if the next chapter is going to give me some answers there. *Smile*


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