Book by @wagingworldwars

Genre: Romance, probably
Chapters read: All (5)
Total points awarded: 40/60

Title 3/10
This could be a good title, however, in the chapters published there is no indication of a trumpet or clear devil (other than the quote at the beginning of chapter 4 I believe). Therefore, the title doesn't make a lot of sense with the story.

Cover 9/10
The black-and-white theme definitely fits the vibe of the story, which is good. The text of the title is clear and easy-to-read, though I would suggest possibly enlarging your name slightly. The picture looks to be Annabeth and the male love interest holding hands (I'm sorry, I forgot his exact name and don't want to mess it up. I have terrible memory), which is a bit odd since they aren't exactly "close" during the last available chapter of the book. This may be revealed further when the book is continued, however, so it's not too serious.

Characters 9/10
Your characters seem well-developed, and their internal monologues reveal as much as they need to about them in order to make them relatable. Sometimes they stray towards cliche and contradicting though when it comes to their monologue and dialogue, and while cliche is not much of a problem, you may want to double-check when revising and editing the way the characters are presented at the beginning and at the end, and make sure there's not unreasonable shifts in personality and traits (so there has to be a cause to the effect).

Plot/Storyline 9/10
The plot is a little bit cliche, with a mafia romance budding, but that's fine. Lots of stories on this site are. A part of this category is pacing and comprehension of plot, which is something you struggle with at a few points in the story. Sometimes you struggle to explain things properly and end up with small gaps in the story, or you spring something up that was not previously hinted at and seems more sudden. This could be fixed when revising and editing, if even just adding small details that may hint that, say, Annabeth took the class in college (I am so sorry if I'm wrong about this point; I read the first chapter the night before the others due to time constraints so my memory is not the best).

Enjoyment 4/10
The story itself was pretty enjoyable, but there were many consistent grammar errors that kept me from fully enjoying the story. The first id like to bring up is the dialogue. When writing, you always put the dialogue punctuation inside the quotation marks. For example, in your book you wrote dialogue like: "How do you do, Jack?", she said, when it should be: "How do you do, Jack?" she said. You don't add anything outside the quotation, all ending punctuation is inside. On a similar note, dialogue tags. Dialogue tags are pieces of text before or after dialogue that helps readers understand how the dialogue is being presented. It's always describing it (ie. said, asked, joked, screamed, whispered), and is always lowercase following dialogue, regardless of ending punctuation. However, if it's not a dialogue tags, then you capitalize the first letter and always end the actual dialogue with a period, comma, or question mark. An example of a non-dialogue tag would be an action that is separate from the dialogue, (ie. She smirked), because it does not directly describe how the words are conveyed. The second-to-last grammar problem I'd like to bring up is run-on sentences, or sentences without proper breaking-up of words and ideas through periods or commas. I noticed as I read that this is something you struggle with, particularly after dialogue in dialogue tags or non-dialogue tags. When you switch ideas, but not enough to necessarily form a new sentence, you should add a comma. A few examples I found in your book are: "You go freshen up first, Anna. You stink", he said scrunching his nose; and: I put it aside as I didn't find any news article on a certin murder and stared at the design on my ceiling finding it beautiful.; these examples can be rewritten with a comma in between scrunching and his in the first sentence, and between ceiling and finding in the second. Both of those are necessary, as it helps it both flow better and separate them a bit more. A good tip to find the other instances would be to read your work aloud exactly how it's written with periods and commas, and find the places where it feels awkward. The last grammar issue that stuck out to me was tense. The book seems to be written primarily in past-tense, but there are several instances where it slipped into present tense, which can be very confusing for readers.

Description 4/10
Your description is very short; it just says a quote, the two main characters names and a few traits, and a single paragraph about the story. It doesn't really properly introduce the story and hook readers, which is what the blurb is intended for. The first step may be to remove the quotes in the beginning, and replace it with an eye-catching sentence that draws the reader to click on it. When someone sees it on an off-chance, like looking through story tags, the first thing they look at will be those first few sentences. For example, I was once scrolling through tags in a story and clicked on a book simply because I saw the word "murder" in the segment of blurb it showed, so those first few sentences really count. After that you should introduce the characters, which you do, and provide a brief description of circumstances and setting that will give readers context and a starting point. You also want to include any triggers/warnings in the blurb to warn people before they even open the book on if they want to read it, which you do, so you should keep that.

Overall 40/60
In conclusion your story has a solid beginnings to be a great story, but I'd suggest reading through and editing it thoroughly. It may not necessarily be my cup of tea in genre, but it can become an amazing book if you put your mind to it. When you revise and edit, you should focus on grammar, characterization details, and plot details. It may be a good idea to rework the title, but it is completely up to you, and could become more apparent in later chapters.