Hello Caerlynn,

I enjoyed your story and hope you'll share future chapters (and please feel free to let me know when you do). I read it with an eye toward focusing on the things you requested attention to and will make them headers below, for your easy reference (although I used a slightly different order).

FIRST LINE
I felt like the first line/opening line needed more punch... but is worth including. If you were to change the order of the first few sentences to something like this, it might do the trick: "Something momentous would happen today. I was sure of it. Today is the summer solstice. Nineteen years ago today my mother gave me life. " This gets the reader immediately thinking about what momentous thing would happen instead of just reading that it's the summer solstice. Now, my Wiccan friends would be absolutely riveted by the summer solstice opening, but for the majority of readers, I suspect it's not as exciting.

FIRST PARAGRAPH
I think it's great. It tells me who the main character is, foreshadows the something momentous that's about to happen, shows her love of music and a deep bond with her father.

APPEAL
The story appeals to me. I like this kind of story anyway, but I think it would have enjoyed it even if it weren't my jam.

READABILITY
Wonderful readability. You write clearly and eloquently. The story flows well and is easy to understand.

INTEREST
The piece held my attention the whole way through. This paragraph upped the tension a lot, heightening my interest: "I can’t meet Owain. It would be unseemly. Da would surely punish me if he found out. He’d made me promise to stay away from him. I was promised to Rhys now. Cavorting with other boys would make me look like a wanton girl. The thought of kissing Owain sent tingles down my spine. Why could I not find that same affection for Rhys. He was handsome and he was a good man. Da had chosen well."

CLIFF HANGER
In paragraph two this felt a little like a cliff hanger because I wanted to know why the heroine couldn't tell him: " even though I know he’ll never know because I’ll never be able to tell him." But I'm sure you really wanted to know about the end of the paragraph. Well... I can tell you that I wish the next chapter was ready. So I guess that means it's a good cliff hanger .

The only other big-picture suggestion for improvement I have is to introduce the heroine's name earlier. It felt like a long time before I found out her name was Alys and I could think of her as such instead of just "the heroine."

As you requested, I didn't comment on grammar etc.

All the best to you!
Write on!
PWheeler

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