And to think it all started so well…
Whilst this is quite well written…
It does not get better… :-\
…I found the bleakness of it all a bit of a turn off.Also the opening did not grab me I’m afraid and if I would have picked this up at a bookshop on that fact alone I would have put it back down.Perhaps a bit more dialogue and less narrative would help give it more pace.
Unless of course by the bleakness she (I think it is a she) means is the grief that Ben goes through, in which case, yes I can understand that. I’ve been told before that I possibly overdid that bit. I thought there was a fair amount of dialogue! And it is hard to give Helen dialogue when she’s on her own.
So far, my best review by far has come from someone who is also a ‘fan’ of the genre. I guess I’m currently just not pushing the right buttons to attract the non-genre readers in…
With both my novels I got significantly higher ratings from ‘genre fans’ – which is a good sign – your book will inevitably be marketed a certain way, to appeal to people most likely to want to read it.
I don’t see your story as ‘bleak’ at all, really – or perhaps it’s just that my own writing is sooooooo bleak that by comparison yours is a tea-party 😉 I got criticised in one review for having too *much* dialogue. Horses for courses and all that 🙂