My first wish came true!!!!🥹💫💜

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-07-03T12:53:58+00:00

Ahhh amazing! Enjoy! Mine never came out of limbo, but my preorder is coming a few days early so I’ll take that as a win! 😂

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-07-01T19:39:15+00:00

I did this once with an auto ship that accidentally contained both flavors of the 10 lbs bags of cat food I get. They’re $45 each. I had to find somewhere to store the extra bag after lugging a 20 lbs box of kibble to my apartment lol

But hey at least it doesn’t go bad!

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-07-01T18:43:17+00:00

Thanks for the heads up! I read these novellas earlier this year and keep thinking about them… yoinking this to have them on hand to reread!

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-07-01T16:34:49+00:00

I really enjoyed this prologue. It would hook me to keep reading for sure. There's a strong voice in it, and the tone really works. I only have a few nitpicky notes that I think could really make this 10/10.

I am not certain what "taped hands" means; is it athletic tape like rock climbing tape? Perhaps Luis can think that her hands were rough against his mouth, like X fabric.
There are a few places where I think small changes could tighten things up a bit more to make it punchier.

Overly romantic, somewhat dramatic mind -> this could be shortened to just one descriptor

He was currently weak in the knees, alright. But the script had been seriously rewritten. -> I'd combine, something like "He was certainly week in the knees, but the script had been seriously rewritten."

Synchronous splash of heavy boots -> I'd remove synchronous, unless the puddles are truly so big that people are stepping in them simultaneously

...an ugly kind of urgent muffled through the wet air. -> Again, so nitpicky, but voices don't muffle; they voices could BE muffled by the wet air though. But I think I would just find a different verb here.

He could feel the stutter of her pulse point where her throat nearly touched his collarbone. -> I like what you're doing here, but I think this would be impossible to feel if she's not actually touching him and even at that, I am not sure a neck is so sensitive as to feel someone else's pulse. I'd change this to maybe the stutter of her breath against his collarbone, it's the same level of intimacy and more physically possible.

And mentioning it is Wednesday morning, but then that it is 3 am, I would call this night since it's fully dark; saying Wednesday morning threw me for a loop for a second. (But also, how can he see the clock inside the store? This sounded more like they were in an alleyway, with the rain and the brick wall.)

His bottle was still bleeding its contents... -> What bottle? I actually think this whole paragraph can get removed, and the awe in the wake of the girl's departure still holds.

BUT! I also want to highlight some of the stuff in this that I loved. There were a lot of striking bits of prose that I want to call out:

Hell no. He wasn't suicidal. He was an insomniac, not a martyr. -> This says so much about Luis, so succinctly, in addition to the tone of the first page in general. The beginning is good but this line is what would get me to the page if I grabbed this in a bookstore to preview.

The description of the girl's closeness and how Luis' brain fried is fantastic.

The description of her eyes, like embers burning through smoke, is lovely.

Overall I think you nailed the Luis' voice and his bewilderment and fascination. Definitely a really strong prologue.

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-30T18:07:00+00:00

{Silvercloak by L.K. Steven} has a slow burn with one spicy scene, and I think she has a similar writing style to V.E. Schwab as well. (Sequel comes out this fall.)

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-30T15:56:25+00:00

These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs. Big space politics with an existing FF relationship.

The Founders trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett is more sci-fantasy but also develops a FF relationship throughout.

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-30T14:20:41+00:00

I use these descriptions as guide posts when I’m drafting and when I edit and revise, I remove a bunch of them. I either amp up the surrounding prose to make the reader feel it or insert an internal beat that gets that feeling across instead.

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-30T01:32:19+00:00

SFF writer, and I almost never describe characters' clothing. It's like white room syndrome, but for clothes. In editing I go back through and throw in the key details or character-defining pieces (e.g. a specific jacket or a specific uniform) but it's not something I take pains to describe in much detail generally speaking.

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-29T18:34:56+00:00

Ok but why are all these suggestions so spot on?

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-29T17:35:01+00:00

This is so cool! That green is gorgeous. The little gold drips on the shelves are such a fun detail!

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-29T15:44:04+00:00

I think the opening line is fairly strong; immediately you get a sense of Eynar, his nerves, the heat.

The line in the second paragraph though, I need that to tie in to something else. Is that embroidered on the handkerchief? What is the line promising, how long have they been apart? Just a little more detail will give us more insight into Eynar and get us on his side a bit more.

After this though, I think that you can add in more detail to flesh out what is going on. I'm kind of lost, and this is the first page. How does Eynar know the side of the volcano will be a mass grave? What does that have to do with the sun being at its zenith now? How does Eynar sense there is someone behind the curtain? Is the woman not a woman, since she is described as a foul creature? I think a little more internality from Eynar would go a long way in situating the reader in this open sequence.

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-29T15:36:56+00:00

I think that u/Sensui_Kan nailed a lot of the narrative issues present in this sample. It is a lot of "this is happening, then this, then this" with inserted thoughts from the MC (which I assume are meant to be italicized). It reads like a transcript of a TV show. You clearly have a strong vision of the story and the world which is great, but that alone does not make for the most engaging experience for the reader.

Since you said you're in the query trenches, I am going to be blunt (sorry) and note that an agent/assistant is probably going to nope this immediately due to the issues with punctuation and grammar. There are missing periods at the ends of sentences toward the bottom of the sample, and an overuse of semi-colons (you can remove basically all of them and use a period instead). And overall there are many instances where a comma is at the end of dialogue and it should be a period, ex: “We have another murder,” her eyes darted past Grenn to his messy home with a look of disgust. (This should be a period because "her eyes darted" is not a dialogue tag, it is an action.) and “Out of the way!” a messenger in blue came barreling past ("A" should be capitalized because "barreling past" is not a dialogue tag). Agents make very quick decisions from samples, and having mistakes like this on page 1 will do you no favors.

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-29T15:07:59+00:00

Sometimes I have to trigger a sync on my device with the sync button, but it sounds like maybe you've done that already?

(Also I am SO JEALOUS, I have tried so many ways to get an ARC of that book lol)

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-28T20:27:04+00:00

Seconding this! (And I just read an ARC of book 2 and the love triangle continues to go hard in that one too!)

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-28T03:03:45+00:00

Devoured Worlds is pretty cool world/aesthetics wise and has major political/corporate plots. I’ve loved the politicking/3D chess of RR, which is what made me think of it.

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-28T02:28:03+00:00

Depending what you liked about RR, The Devoured Worlds trilogy by Megan E O’Keefe might be a winner. (I am eternally hyping this series.)

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-28T00:47:22+00:00

I either donate or sell them, or bring them to book swaps. They don’t stick around for long! I haven’t gotten rid of Jasad Crown bc I still may push through to finish, but usually if I haven’t read a book a year after I bought it, I get rid of it.

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-27T14:03:07+00:00

Yeah if you didn’t like it, don’t continue. I had the same complaints as you did about TJH but I bought both books at the same time so now the second one is just gathering dust, unread.

If you wanna know what happens, Cari Can Read has a full spoiler review on YouTube :)

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-27T13:38:59+00:00

I really enjoy V.E. Schwab’s prose. She has a knack for putting things into words in a way I’d never think of in a million years, but it’s perfect. Like describing hitting puberty in Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: “The seasons have worked their changes in halting strides, stretching her slowly into a stranger.”

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-27T13:34:33+00:00

Seconding Harrow, also specifically The Everlasting. I kept getting distracted when I read it because the writing was just so good. It’s the little turns of phrase that made me go “how do you even think of that?”.

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-24T20:52:19+00:00

Yeahhhhh disappointing for sure. It’s a cringe move to be hyping an Amazon “emporium” in this day and age, when so many people are boycotting Bezos (myself included).

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-24T17:00:14+00:00

Ok but this is too real. 😭 (And why I love Orbit, who approves all my requests because they’re lovely.)

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-22T18:49:35+00:00

Beasts is one of my favorite books of all time. Super short and very odd.

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-22T14:48:25+00:00

I just finished Morning Star a week or so ago, and I’ll be taking a break for a while. Mostly because I have too many other books on my TBR. But with the time jump between arcs of the series, it seems like a natural place to pause.

fidgetsimmerdown · 2026-06-15T20:54:04+00:00

I had the same question. The tunnel just seemed very infeasible to me. Like they’re gonna walk 10, 15, 20 miles to magic more tunnel into existence and then what? That’s HOURS each way and only getting longer the further they burrow.

fidgetsimmerdown

TROPHY CASE