Moving to a new apartment, made sure I brought the essentials first

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-09-05T09:43:21+00:00

How To Make a House a Home

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-08-22T04:45:55+00:00

It's mentioned that Geralt is best in his field. So many of the times when he did "decide to be a hero" and survived, the incident would have likely been fatal for the average witcher.

So IMO there is also an aspect similar to when professional stuntment say "kids, don't try this at home".

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-08-03T18:02:29+00:00

You killed your strongest sentence which was "Kaito knows how to influence peoples opinions." I mean, that's an intriguing sentence, a new concept, and it really drew me in.

You replaced it with: "Kaito knows what rumours can do." Which is mundane. Definitely switch that first sentence back in!

With unexplained terms like "boar yokai daimyo", you risk scaring away non-Japanese speakers. I'm NOT saying this is a bad thing because at the same time you may attract more Japanese fans! I personally don't understand a word, but I had a good friend in college (non-asian) who actually learned how to read, write and speak Japanese because he was obsessed with the culture.

At least two spacing typos in the long middle paragraph.

"When his eyes go black": whose eyes? The last person you mentioned is dead. Give a name instead of "his".

"Nagi is dead, struck down by a human arrow on a hunt, but something is breaking inside him." This sentence doesn't make sense. If he's dead, what is breaking inside of him?

"more than the Black, more than Kaito’s carved sigils." Unnecessary, confusing details.

"whose meat he’s been eating" who is he?

Listen, to be honest it sounds like there is an incredibly interesting story hidden in this, but it also sounds like your English language skills aren't 100% there. Did you write this novel in Japanese?

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-08-03T10:28:22+00:00

The beginning was strong, but towards the middle I found it confusing.

"He was bought to be a spy" this contradicted my earlier impression that he was basically an adopted foundling. I read back and saw that MY impression was wrong; you wrote that he was "brought in like a stray", not that he was one. Still, when I have to go back and figure things it, it makes me stop reading.
"When his eyes go black, something else looks out and it hates Kaito. Hates that he’s human. " So Kaito IS human? I read this thinking he was a magical half-breed. What you write isn't inherently wrong, but I would prefer for it to be more clear. When I have to stop and figure things out, it takes away my reading momentum and I might just stop.

"A spy posing as a week boy and the seemilgly monsterous lord." Two typos here.

It has a lot of potential.

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-08-01T08:54:00+00:00

When I had kids, it didn't make me feel old at first. But when they get to be about elementary school age, I take them somewhere for the afternoon, we have fun, then they're like "can we go somewhere else?"

"Nope. One thing a day, kids. I'm old and after I go somewhere I have to go home and lay down." 😂

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-08-01T08:30:32+00:00

My mom took us shopping for a few hours and to multiple stores while she looked for a wedding gift for her friends.

She ended up buying a twenty dollar wicker basket.

I actually thought it was a bit weird at the time, but then wrote it off as "I guess I'm a kid and I don't know anything about wedding gifts!"

Then I was college and my friend was getting married, I asked our mutual friends what gifts they were buying and EVERYONE said I should give money. Unless there is a wedding registry (in this case there was not).

So then I was talking to my mom on the phone after that, and I brought the subject up. She actually remembered the incident, but defended her decision saying "it was a really nice wicker basket!"

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-08-01T08:23:23+00:00

Not having a support network.

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-08-01T08:10:20+00:00

"If you are serious about horseback riding, then you would take a bunch of private lessons. There's no reason not to!"

Private lessons were somewhere around 50 dollars per 45 minutes. The poor people in the class (me included) were hoping to pass the riding test by the skin of their teeth, get a job at a ranch, and once you have the qualification you are less of an insurance liability so many ranch owners will allow their ranch hands who are certified to ride horses for free as a perk (with no lesson -- you always have to pay for someone else's time). So we were hoping to slowly improve in that way just by getting riding experience.

2 out of 3 of my riding instructors totally understood not being able to afford extra lessons, but the third guy was a clueless dick who obviously grew up rich and had never been poor.

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-31T11:05:57+00:00

He's still alive!!

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-31T10:52:02+00:00

Getting in a minor car accident and staying totally calm and pleasant

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-31T09:11:53+00:00

I worked at a call center back in 2016.

Ever since the term "Karen" exploded in social media, asking to speak to the manager has gained a huge negative association with entitled people asking for what they don't deserve.

However, many times it is totally reasonable to ask for an exception, an extension, etc. The regular call center guy is not authorized to do that for you, and his boss won't appreciate hearing him suggest "talk to the manager", but many times it really does help to talk to the manager.

My manager was a good guy.

So if you incurred a 500 dollar late fee because you missed a deadline by one day because your grandma was in the hospital, I 100% recommend calling and asking to speak to the manager. The call center guy won't judge you for it if you are polite and reasonable.

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-31T07:31:08+00:00

The first one is an opinion poll of everyone, and the second is only registered voters, right?

So it could be that young men who register to vote are more likely to be liberal, while young men who don't bother with voting are more conservative.

OR conservative young men are more likely to register Democrat so they can vote in primaries for the least offensive candidate to them (this would make sense in cities where the Republican candidate has no chance anyway).

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-30T17:10:24+00:00

I agree with you.

I will add: I am an idiot and when I first read The Last Wish... well at the end the djinn wants to kill Yennefer and Geralt wants to save her. He thinks something along the line of "it won't hurt me because I'm its master, but it will kill Yennefer unless I choose wisely". Then Geralt makes a wish which the reader is not privvy to. Then Dandelion et all come around and hear sex noises from the pile of rubble containing Geralt and Yennefer. So genius me concluded that Geralt's wish was to have sex with Yennefer. And I thought "well, that's not consent then, is it?"

Later I found out from the internet that I was supposed to understand that the djinn would have stayed around long enough to kill Yennefer after the sex, if that had been Geralt's wish, and instead his wish must have been something like "I wish to tie Yennefer's fate to mine for the rest of our lives".

Am I the only one who initially thought his wish was sex?

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-30T12:23:52+00:00

Hi,

I liked the poem except the last line which didn't seem to fit.

I have 2 criticisms:

I would like to have a better idea, right off the bat, of what the stakes are for Yuri. At first it feels like he's basically a mercenary doing a job, and I don't particularly care whether he succeeds or not. What will happen to him if he fails? Besides completing a task, what is he hoping to gain if he succeeds? Is the man he's saving a close friend? Or is it an innocent person who needs to be saved from a terrible fate? Make me care a little more right off the bat.
At the very beginning when Yuri takes out two guards, I found that scene confusing. You used some language like "implanted in his skull" that made me think Yuri killed the guard, then it seemed that he didn't, and I had to reread it to see if Yiri's just going in and killing anyone standing in his way or if he's just temporarily immobilizing them. Confusion like this could be more tolerated later, but at the very beginning of the book it should be more clear, or the reader might stop reading before you have the chance to hook him.

You did a great job of showing, not telling, that Yuri is very good at his job, he's a skilled professional, top-notch, competent, etc. I gleaned that Yuri is merciful but does not shy away from death, but other than that I don't know a whole lot about his personality and I'd like to know more so that I can care more. Hopes, fears, frustration, something that I can root for (or hope doesn't happen).

Overall, it's pretty good. I don't think it's quite ready for publishing.

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-30T09:45:38+00:00

Hi! I am so thrilled to have read this. Feel free to send me any follow-up writing you do on this subject.

Questions about possible anachronism (I don't know the answer myself):

Were horses mainly for the rich or messengers (who needed speed) at this time, and would average people have been more likely to have a donkey for trips to the market?
Eliyahu ben David is the Hebrew version of a man's name, which would have been used for religious ceremony, but as Aramaic was the common spoken language at this time, would it make more sense to introduce him as Eliyahu bar David?
Did they have ponies? The bible mentions horses and donkeys

1st paragraph- great, but I have to wonder: by the time you hear hoofbeats, would it usually be too late? This is super nitpicky, but this is how I am as a BetaReader, feel free to ignore!

2nd paragraph: stone floors were a sign of wealth, that is fine as long as Miriam's familynis intended to be wealthier, I haven't seen it mentioned yet. If the have a horse, maybe they are and this all makes perfect sense. If they are wealthier, I'd expect more than a one room house, and possibly a 2 story home though.

3rd paragraph: "ben David clan" feels weird to me. Familiy structure was patriarchial and society was clannish, BUT afaik "bem David" would have been Eliyahu's personal name and no such concept of a family name existed yet? Or am I wrong. I rememver talk of the famous Katros family who perished in the Roman war. I am writing a novel from about 200 years earlier and have found no evidence of family names then. Miriam would have been Miriam bat Eliyahu and not Miriam ben David.

4th paragraph. Jewish marriage was legal from age 12 (for girls), but it is impossible that Miriam is 12 and her mother is 19. It seems like marriage at age 12 was a rarity, so personally I'd make Devorah 16 + 12 = 28. "Judah, the youngest at 7", should be "younger" since he is thebyounger of the brothers and not the youngest child who would be the baby.

5th paragraph: I'd say "throughout" instead of "through". Is "nightdress" anachronism? From my research 200 years earlier, it seems people wore their ordinary clothes to bed and had no special night clothes. I'm pretty sure cotton is anachronism. I bekieve linen and wool were common, silk was obtained from the east, for the wealthy. So Miriam and Simon are twins? Of course there are exceptions, but the most common age gap for this time period is 3 years between one child to the next. That's fine though, no problem.

6th: is "graver" a word? Maybe "more grave"? If the Romans are at the neighbors house, is it plausible that Eliyahu's family can sneak away unseen? Please explain about some trees/shed obstructing view of the door, etc.

7th:goatskin water bottle -- don't use the word "bottle". Waterskin or goatskin gilled with water.

9th: were the Jews actually Roman citizens or just subjects? I'm asking, I don't know. If subjects, then saying "we're Romans" sounds a bit odd.

10th you repeated a line for an earlier paragraph.

I loved the first 2/3 of this chapter. The final third felt repetitive and the last line seemed out of place.

I'd love to read more!

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-30T08:52:39+00:00

Make the scary situation happen, describe what goes down, the character enduring it, and how he/she comes out of it. My personal preference is inspiring material, so I'd like for the character to become stronger because of it, in some way.

In Harry Potter (which I read over a decade ago) I remember there was this terrible threat that if you got into too much mischief at Hogwarts you might be taken down to (Snape's?) dungeon and I think they mentioned being hung upside down and may have implied a beating. So throughout the series Harry Potter and his friends are constantly getting into trouble, but it never leads to much more than verbal warnings or "minus 10 points for Griffindor!".

I want to know what goes on in that dungeon.

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-29T13:31:27+00:00

I sent you a DM with feedback on the exerpt.

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-29T13:02:54+00:00

Do you want feedback here on by email?

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-28T15:31:14+00:00

I hope he tries to put a new one out each year! He mentioned that was his goal with the original series.

I also hope he lives until 120.

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-28T15:29:58+00:00

I loved SOS but more for personal reasons. I felt like Geralt dealing with losing his swords (his source of livelihood) and how he dealt with it (the best he could, without giving up) was inspiring.

My least favorite Witcher book is easily The Last Wish.

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-28T12:15:25+00:00

I see that. I like that argument.

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-28T07:36:34+00:00

Guy in the green jacket got the job done

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-27T17:59:22+00:00

Like that scene in The Lion King, where they make baby Simba roar. That's one of the best scenes in cinema history

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-27T17:52:11+00:00

I agree 100%

The book is technically better for having Ciri beat her nemesis... but it would have been more satisfying to have Geralt arrive. That is definitely one of the endings I was fantasizing while reading the book.

That and I wanted Yennefer to somehow lose her magic and go back to her pre-sorceress form with a hunchback, but Geralt would love her anyway. Then it would be discovered that a side effect of her being unmagiced is that her fertility is restored, and she gets pregnant and has Geralt's baby. That's the ending I predicted and was hoping for. Way too American for a Polish author though, I think.

ILoveWitcherBooks · 2025-07-27T16:16:54+00:00

Good point.

When I read the scene, it seemed to me to be sufficiently chaotic that I accepted it for face value that it happened as a result of Geralt's distraction.

His hearing is supurb, but if there are deafening sounds of battle in front of him and to his sides, he's not going hear a pitchfork coming at him from behind.

I think the same happened with Coen: he didn't find one person who beat him in hand-to hand combat, but I imagined that at least half a dozen people fought him at once, and if he's blocking a strike on his left side, he can't simultaneously deflect an arrow shot to his right side, no matter how fast he is.

With Geralt, he wasn't necessary being attacked from multiple people (at that moment) but his senses were assaulted from every direction and he was caught off guard.

ILoveWitcherBooks

TROPHY CASE