Heidi Rice - Mentor

Comment on Once Upon A Time

Oh my, Romy, I absolutely adored this entry... Both your hero and heroine engaged me instantly, your voice is sharp, witty and unique (and perfectly suited to Riva!!) and I felt your opening had just the right balance of external and internal conflict... I particularly loved Michael's reaction when Ellie cut him out - so many hidden depths shimmering there that I want to know all about!

I also loved that you took a real risk with your hero making him a PA and yet managed to still make him so engagingly alpha - because after all what's more alpha than a man who can still exude so much confidence in an apparently subservient position? And you also gave us some strong hints (that Ellie, bless her, hadn't picked up on) that Michael is rather more than a PA. I got the impression that beneath Michael's shirt and tie is a man who's driven, ambitious, is prepared to fight dirty if he needs to and is a little distainful of a woman like Ellie who's had everything handed to her on a plate but has decided to reject it!! I can't wait to see him realise that there's a lot more to her than that... And for her to realise that he's nothing like the pampered men her father has thrown in her path before...

I could see the sparks really flying between these two and I so want to read more.

If I had any suggestions (and really I was struggling to find any fault with this chapter), I would watch out for Ellie’s dad, because he has the potential to become a bit of a gooseberry. Personally I felt really let down when he turned up at the Tavern, because it instantly weakened the lovely sexual tension you had brewing between your hero and heroine. Why not have Michael make his proposition without the dad there? Why not have him be the one to back her into a corner? Because having the dad there to force the issue (and insist she consult Michael instead of having Michael insist himself) undermines Michael’s position — and weakens the tension. You could always have her phone dad from the table and get told by him that this is Michael’s initiative and he’s in charge, establishing the fact early on that Ellie knows it isn’t an option to run to her Dad when Michael does something she doesn’t like (something which you’ve done here, but with Dad present!!).

Also to keep the chapter as pacy as possible I’d try tightening up the bit before Michael appears (the bit where Ellie says the princess ‘gave everything away to the poor people who really needed it’ sounded a bit worthy and condescending and made me wonder about her motives a little bit when she starts talking about her charity work) and also lose some of the interaction with secondary characters in the boardroom after the meeting (the conversation with her uncle for example.)

But really there isn’t much that could improve this. I loved it. And would love to read more. Good luck in the comp!

NB: As an author mentor, the views expressed in the above comment are my own only and don’t reflect those of Romance HQ, nor do they affect the outcome of the competition.

#90  |  Report this comment

Comment on Coming Home

Hi Catherine

Well, you don't really need me to reiterate what others have already said, but this is a really powerful entry. Sweet, tender, compelling with two exceptionally engaging and relatable characters. Your voice is very evocative and your style equally so. I loved the fact that your hero is so traumatised by his injury that he has tried to keep it a secret – which said to me that he had in no way come to terms with the lose of his leg - his conflict felt very real and also heartbreaking without being maudlin. Similarly with your heroine we had a strong sense of a woman who's outward toughness hides a tender soul struggling to cope with her father's illness.

If I had any tips for this entry (and to be honest it was hard to find anything to criticise) I would say maybe you could cut a little of the backstory early on in the chapter. You really don’t need the information in Blake’s internal thought about renting the cottage from Simon for example, because he goes on to explain it when speaking to Sienna.

I was also a little confused that Sienna hadn’t noticed he had lost part of his lower leg as I got the impression he hadn’t put the prosthetic on. I think maybe you need to clarify that or it has the potential to confuse your readers and pull them out of the story.

One thought I did have for the story going forward: I would be a bit wary of allowing Blake to keep his disability secret from Sienna for too long, because that has the potential to frustrate your readers wondering why Sienna hasn’t figured it out. And it also masks Blake’s real reasons for not wanting Sienna to be in such close proximity. That he can’t cope with what his injury has done to his confidence, and his image of himself as a man. Your reader will want to see Blake forced to deal with that, instead of expending a lot of effort keeping up the deception. But I’m sure you’ve already realised that.

The only other thing that jarred a little with me was the ending. Although it was a compelling moment, I'm not sure I would have ended the chapter on that particular hook.. Mostly because it seemed a little surprising to me that after having been so emotionally tough up to that point, Sienna would suddenly break down like that and leave herself so vulnerable to a complete stranger. And after the emotional truth of everything that had gone before, that moment felt oddly manipulative. How else can Blake respond but to give in to her request to stay at the cottage, now? But using what is effectively external conflict (namely Sienna's father's illness) to bring this about makes the finish lose some of the power you have built up in the preceding scene. And as a result it felt like a bit of an anti-climax for me.

That said, it was really only a minor blip, and I would love to read more about these two. Best of luck in the competition! Although I'm not sure you need it.

NB: As an author mentor, the views expressed in the above comment are my own only and don’t reflect those of Romance HQ, nor do they affect the outcome of the competition.

#84  |  Report this comment

Comment on All Fired Up!

Jo, I've gotta say I really enjoyed this entry. I thought you drew us right into the fire station brilliantly and I loved the sexual and emotional tension between your hero and heroine. The moment when she wanted to touch his hair was beautifully evocative and made me want to touch it too!!

Maybe you could have cut down on the detailed description as others have suggested, but honestly it didn't slow the pace for me that much. I also felt the POV switch came just at the right time. And while your hero clearly has issues, I didn't feel he came across as a jerk, partly because he was so wonderfully unsettled by your heroine's spunky, sassy approach to his grumpiness. There was a real feeling of tension there. That he actively wanted to dislike her, and was trying to justify it because of his prejudices about female firefighters, but she was making it really hard for him. The fact that he was having to fight that internal battle at all spoke to me of a man who's not a jerk but clearly has had an experience which has soured his outlook on relationships (and in this case female firefighters as well) and you set it up beautifully for us to see Mac get right in his face and make it hard as hell for him to get away with it.

I guess my only worry would be that there is enough conflict in the story going forward between these two specifically and not just their stated differences about women working in a fire station. But I felt there were more than enough hints here to suggest that Alex's problems went much deeper than just female firefighters. Maybe we could have seen a little more of how Mac felt about his dismissive attitude on a personal level (instead of just being naturally pissed off about it)...

But all in all a cracking entry. Intriguing, imaginative, with lots of external conflict, some good strong hints of internal conflict and lashings of sexual tension. I'd love to read more.

#7  |  Report this comment