Title: Leonardo

Author: Yummychocochick

Reviewer: Tumike-John

Summary: 2.5/5

I'm not really a fan of werewolf stories, but I was drawn to yours because of who Leonardo is: a werewolf, wizard, and demon. Having these personalities was something I was curious to see how you'd present. That's the main point of a summary. Make the readers open the book, which I did. Being a story centred on a character is what I have seen multiple times and the title named after the character. I am not bothered about this, though.

The part that just made me shift a little was adding, 'Amanda Holden is a naive girl — a 20-year-old human,' and going on to expand how she's a distraction to Leonardo.

Leo, from the summary, is someone who is experienced, and so there is a likelihood for him to have met other naive twenty-year-olds. Amanda doesn't feel like a distinct character. In fact, she isn't a distinct character — as you told from the blurb. I have nothing to feel for her. Should I care about her because she's naïve? Should I hate her for that? Why should I be interested? Anybody can be naïve; make yours more than that! Sure, a love interest will spawn, but is it because Amanda is ... naïve?

You did justice to Leonardo — which I guess is because he is the centre of the story — but you should work more on Amanda Holden.

Writing Style: 2/5

I feel like I should talk about this before going to grammar. You did more of telling than showing. I wasn't pleased with this. It was difficult to imagine the characters, feel their emotions, touch their environment. It was sort of plain and grey.

The first paragraph started with Bella waking up after being poured a bucket of water:

'I was suddenly woken from my deep slumber. Damn! It's so cold. I opened my eyes only to notice that it's none other than my 'brother' holding an empty bucket in his hand. I looked down at myself. I was fully drenched with ice-cold water. My teeth started chattering as the cold air came in contact with my skin. I gazed at my stepbrother. Lewis Alby.

I felt like it could be more interesting if you made it more descriptive and memorable:

'Never have I been startled so much in bed. For a second, my lungs shut down and my brain told me I was drowning. Not until I felt a blanket of frost take over my skin before I shot up from bed. I caught the sight of my brother holding an empty bucket. Then I looked at myself, drenched in ice-cold water along with my bed. Realising this, as if the temperature suddenly fell, my teeth gnashed and my pale fingers began twitching.'

I know my example is not the best, but I only made a suggestion. You can choose to use it or modify it. With the example, I hope you get my point? Try making the words come alive; it'll make the readers have a feel of the book. It's not necessary for you to make everything vivid. Sometimes, telling works better than showing. However, if you're trying to 'make' characters, don't just work on their physical descriptions, work on their actions, too.

Another thing, dialogue tags. You need to work on them. Dialogue tags are those things you see after a dialogue: she said, he asked, she retorted, he replied. Those are dialogue tags. They refer to the dialogues:

"How are you?" he asked.

"Get out!" she yelled.

"He works at the gate," Simon said.

If they don't refer to the dialogues, don't use a comma (,) after the dialogue. However, question marks and exclamation marks should have no commas; instead, the dialogue tags should start with a lowercase (as if it had ended with a comma). There are exceptions to this, like using proper nouns (the first letter — which is always in uppercase — should remain in uppercase).

"How are you?" He hugged her.

"Get out!" She kicked the sleeping kitten.

"He works at the gate." Simon shrugged and sipped his wine.

Dialogue tags is a really long topic, and I'm certain I haven't even covered half. You can search the web for help. Although it's broad, it's very easy to understand — and in no time you'd know how to put dialogue tags in the middle of sentences.

Also, concerning the switch between first person and third person, I'm not a fan of this style, as I find it distracting from the plot. One part, I'm reading in a first person POV. Another, we're listening to the voice of a narrator who's backstage. Always remember that consistency is key. Since the first person POV is what the story has, it's better to follow that. However, this is entirely your choice.

Grammar: 2.5/5

Although I can still understand your sentences, I find some of them incorrect. Having a story with proper grammar improves flow and makes it easy for the readers to understand. This way, you'd have less things to worry about than grammar.

I have talked about the use of names in sentences in one of my reviews, but I'll talk about it again. "When a name is being called, a comma precedes or succeeds the name.

"Example: "I have to Bella." <This is wrong>

Correction: "I have to, Bella."

Example: "It was nice meeting you Xanthos." <This is wrong>

Correction: "It was nice meeting you, Xanthos."

You had some commas missing in a couple of sentences. They can be pointed out easily, but it's really not possible to list them all out in this review. I'll give you a few:

"Voodoo magic isn't it?"

Correction: "Voodoo magic, isn't it?"

"Nice nickname little one but you can't fool me again."

Correction: ""Nice nickname, little one, but you can't fool me again."

The best way to improve your grammar is keep reading and writing. The more you read, the more you learn. The more you write, the less mistake you'll make. Of course, it is all right to be wrong — but we can step up whenever we know what we're doing wrong. For the grammar, I noticed you made more mistakes in the first chapters (from Chapter 1 to around Chapter 12) and from there it reduced. It showed through your passion for writing; when you continued, the better your writing was.

Character Building: 2/5

I'm not so happy about the character development. I felt you could've built more on them. Like in Chapter 9, Bella's dream, I felt it didn't need to be there. It could have been cut out and the story would still make perfect sense. In Chapter 18, there was also another dream — I feel this should be scrapped out as well. I think dreams are okay to be put into stories, but it shouldn't be that constant (I may be wrong since this is a werewolf story). Having too many dream scenes make it look like you're dodging the actual plot and trying to solve problems way too fast; this can make your work look rushed and underdeveloped.

Also, their voices aren't so distinct. Bella and Natasha have the same personality, from what I observed. Their dialogues are so similar that if there were no dialogue tags it'd be impossible to guess who's talking. The same for Lewis and Xanthos. 

Plot + Originality: [no score - will not be added to final score]

I'm not giving this a score, because I don't read werewolf stories that much. In fact, I don't think I've read any like the way I read yours. It's not really a genre I like to pick — but this doesn't mean it's not a good genre, though. It's only my taste. I'm sure there are die-hard fans of werewolf novels; I personally know some.

For the plot, it's something I'd like to read (as you described from the blurb), but the bumps in the story would cause me to go no further. However, the story can be improved. And seeing that you've gone far in the story, well done to that! Once you're done, you can begin editing the novel. I can't wait to see it!

OVERALL SCORE: 9/20

Overall, it is a promising story, and I am sure you can do better! Work on the use of dialogue tags, character development, and fix the punctuations, then I believe you've taken a big leap into making LEONARDO a wonderful read!

Good work!