Author: angelapoppe

Blurb: 

In Goodharts, the small town between the hills, nobody knows how Ferry Donovan looks. His mother has been keeping him out of sight for over nine years. When the boy is finally going to school, the people are not only intrigued by his appearance, but also by the strange things taking place around him.

Yet, weird things are happening in Ferry's town, too, although nobody wants to admit it. Every seven years, a person mysteriously disappears into the forest nearby.

When one of his classmates vanishes into thin air, Ferry might be the only one to know what happened to him.

With the help of his friends, who are just as different, he is determined to find the missing boy and embarks on a journey into the land of the unseen. But is he really prepared for what lies beyond the enchanted realm of the Fae People?

And all this time, someone has been watching him closely...

First Impressions

Cover: The image on the cover with the boy cradled by spiraling branches and surrounded by stars is so beautiful. It automatically turns my mind toward fairies or Peter Pan. The whimsical nature of the cover matches the title and what I read of the book very well.

The only minor critique I'd make (though I'm by no means a cover artist, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt) is that the font used for the title feels a little plain in comparison to the lovely cover and enchanting title. A more elegant script might not go amiss here?

Title: It definitely has a fantasy feel to it, and is unique as far as I'm concerned. I can't think of anything that sounds overly similar. But it's not outlandish, so it feels well matched to the book. It also hints that there is something mystical about the boy, in the same way that moonlight somehow always seems mystical, no matter how many times we see it. Overall, I really liked the title :)

Blurb: For the most part, the blurb feels succinct and sets up the main conflict of the story nicely, drawing readers in. I like the mention of mystery surrounding the disappearances, because that inspires interest without giving anything away.

There are a few sentences that could use a little streamlining for readability and polish. The ones I noticed were:

"When the boy is finally..." could be "When the boy finally begins school..."; "might be the only to know..." could be "might be the only one who knows...". These are just a few suggestions to help out, totally up to you (as are all of my suggestions).

Finally, I would suggest actually cutting the very last line talking about a mysterious watcher. It feels a bit like it's just randomly tagged on at the end, which in turn makes it feel a bit like it's trying to one up the initial mystery of the disappearances. I think your blurb without it is already hooking enough, and would actually be stronger without this additional mystery, which could be much more potent if you just introduce it in the book itself, rather than having readers looking out for the watcher right off the bat.

Overall Things to be Fixed: There were one or two things I noticed throughout all four chapters I read that need a little attention.

Many, many -ing endings that should be -ed endings. Since the overall feeling I got that the book was being written in past tense, I noticed quite a few tense issues. This isn't an uncommon mistake for anyone, even native English speakers (I had noticed you were from Romania, which first of all, that's cool! The second thing, you're writing is overall extremely good for someone who has English as a second (or possibly third or fourth? language)).

A few examples I noticed in the first chapter were: "was hoping" should be "hoped"; "was dreaming" should be "dreamed"; "since she was coming" should be "she came" etc.

If you are so inclined, I would encouraging seeing if you can find a beta-reader or editor (and you can find many on Wattpad) who can help you find those instances where the tense isn't exactly what you want it to be, among other things.

You do have a lot of telling as opposed to showing. Now, I'm not a total stickler for this rule. Honestly I think it gets a little exhaustive when writers take the long way around to show us something they could tell us. You obviously shouldn't do this too often, but I think there is a balance that can be struck between telling and showing. However, you do lean a little too much toward telling us about everything. The town, the people, Ferry's odd behavior. I think the book could be a little more immersive if you show us these things within the story, as opposed to just telling us about them as a narrator. Perhaps show us the town through Ferry's eyes. Give us his reactions to the houses and the people to paint a more vivid picture. Filter our experience through Ferry, so we have a front-row seat concerning how he sees the world. In the same vein, show us Eileen's reactions to her strange son--her thoughts and emotions.

This will ultimately help bring readers closer to the characters and help make the world feel a little richer.

Overall, the writing was good. A few rounds of editing and perhaps having someone else to run an editing eye over your work will make it great.

Now on to my actual review :)

Ch. 1: such an unusual child

The opening feels very much like a classic fairytale, with an omniscient narrator introducing us to a cute little town and a nice little family with an adorable baby boy. Your descriptions and the overall introduction to the story feel very quaint and like I'm reading a Grimm fairytale (lol, hopefully Ferry doesn't run into anyone who wants to eat him). The overall idea is super interesting. I've always loved the idea of changelings and the fairie-related lore, so the premise of the book really draws me. You pull off the third person omniscient PoV quite well, which I find is actually quite a challenging PoV to write in.

I will get into my more heavy critiques in the Chapter Two section, since my thoughts on that concern both chapters.

The imagery you have along with the personalities of a few of the people we met were definitely the strong point of this chapter.

Ch. 2: The name

First, this chapter did a really great job to show us all the odd, crazy things going on with Ferry. That was absolutely the biggest strength of this chapter. You did a truly excellent job of showing us that Ferry isn't a normal child, and I loved all of the different ways you showed that.

That being said, I do have to add that this was probably the weakest of the four chapters I read. You hold the thread of the story well, but I found myself not enjoying this chapter as much as I did the other four. And like I said above, my critiques here can also apply to Chapter One, so please bear with me here.

In total honesty, by the second chapter I kind of wanted to skim ahead in order to get to Ferry's actual adventure and story. The information you presented with him being a baby was well written, but eventually I did find it a bit much. You might consider if you can somehow condense all of the information you tell us about baby Ferry, and keep it all in the first chapter. Then you could skip ahead to the years in which Ferry is having the adventure. I think that could increase the excitement with the book. Big time jumps can sometimes be tricky, but I think you could pull it off :)

In this vein, I noticed that you gave us tons of information about totally random characters. Ultimately, I would find myself wondering if I needed to know about Mrs. Nosey's love of brandy (for example). It's all done in a very charming way, but it does slow down the story and you might consider if cutting those parts will help the pacing of the story.

Ch. 3: One peculiar boy

This was definitely the chapter I was waiting for! I was so excited to start seeing things from Ferry's point of view. This also feels like the point where Peter and Eileen both felt more fleshed out, though admittedly, I'd love to see a little more emotion from Ferry. Does he love Eileen more than Peter because she dotes on him where's Peter seems very cold and distant, for example. Writing emotions from a child's point of view can be a huge challenge, since as adults we no longer think and feel like children, but adding in more of Ferry's direct thoughts and feelings toward anything, not just his parents could really help readers become even more strongly attached to your character.

My absolute favorite part of this chapter was the mysterious singing voice. You somehow managed to make it feel sinister and like it's looking out for Ferry all at the same time, which was a very neat trick. That plus his love for light and draw toward living things gently pulls the reader more toward the idea of him being a fairie child, which I absolutely adored.

I honestly don't have a major critique for this chapter. I really liked your introduction to the school and Matilda is super adorable. Your introductions of the other children were also very cute and I very much enjoyed seeing these new characters.

Ch. 4: The encounter

While the third chapter was the one I was most looking forward to, the fourth was definitely the one I enjoyed the most. Between Ferry standing up to that awful Pride boy and the bald raven, this was the chapter that was the most fun in my opinion.

Again, any critique mostly revolves around adding a little more emotions and thoughts from Ferry himself. Third person omniscient can sort of limit your ability to do that, and please take this with a bit of salt because I prefer working in close third myself. However, omniscient does give you the ability to share the feelings and thoughts of multiple characters, so I would still really encourage adding that in wherever you can.

One point of curiosity I had with this chapter was Ferry has distinguished several things as human. I am very curious as to how he knows there is a world other than the human one out there. You have a little leeway with the idea that Ferry was left with some innate knowledge of his true birthplace, but in changeling stories, you often see that the fairie child has no idea that it's anything other than human, simply because it grew up in the human world. If you're avoiding this trend that's fine, but I still would like to know why he has this idea that there is another world beyond the human one, even if it's just a sort of intuition on his part.

Final Thoughts

The overall story revolves around an enchanting idea. Ferry himself is a lovable hero, but could stand a little fleshing out. Granted he's still very young, but the things I've mentioned above can definitely make him feel even more three-dimensional. The world you've created feels very contained and cozy, in a good way. Right now, all we and Ferry know is the little town he's from, and you've managed to make the town feel quite real and gave it all those small-town quirks that people love. It feels familiar and comfortable, and I'm hoping for a lovely juxtaposition with a larger, maybe scarier world when Ferry embarks on his true journey.

Again I would encourage you to consider looking for a beta-reader, editor or possibly even a bookclub to help find all those tense slips and any other grammar-related issues if you have the time or inclination. I know that those resources have helped my own writing immensely and other people are often able to see small mistakes that your brain might skip over.

The story itself has a ton of potential and I really enjoyed reading it.  

The author's website link is below.