Murder in 1975

Excellent opening and style. Very enjoyable and certainly encourages the reader to read on. It will be interesting to know how the two storylines come together. I will be reading on.

Kathryn

Hi. You've got an interesting set-up in your first chapter -- great scene between Bill and Richard -- and your LP has got me hooked, so I am putting your book on my WL and will read on. This could use a little editing, but the story is interesting and the tnsion is high. Good job!

I like the 1975 setting! I have a book (not up on Autho yet) set in that year, so I am interested in that angle, too.

Elizabeth (The Made-Up Man -- also a crime novel)

I've fixed the formatting / punctuation as per Marita's advice (Thank you!) I also found I had loaded some chapters at the end on top of each other so there are now three more chapters if people would like to read the book again. Hopefully it flows much better now!

Chapter 3: A very good read. I liked how you implicated Philips, or rather Toni's scum ex did :) For this chapter I only have a few nitpicks.

1) After this chapter I won't bug you about missing commas :) 2nd paragraph/1st line of dialogue: "What's going on Toni? *Missing comma after "on". Also, 3rd paragraph: "Now how about you give me some of what you promised?" *Put comma after "Now".
2) Between the paragraphs with Mrs Jane Gordon screaming and the police being in the room put an asterisk for the time division.
3) Your line: Sanderson was about average height, the same as martin... *Capitalise the "m" in Martin.
4) Your line: Sometimes there was a flashy car out the front, which he rather though belonged to... *Change "though" to "thought".
5) There needs to be an asterisk to divide the two paragraphs with the information that Sanderson gave and the phone call between Harper and Philips, because I had to double back to check that this was a new scene.

Onto chapter 4 another day. Really enjoying the read, and apologies for being a pedantic twat with the commas :)

Chapter 2: I couldn't wait, I was supposed to read another story, but I've already got sucked into yours. Definitely not a good thing for Toni with that boyfriend, who was giving off stalker and creepy vibes. Well, we know who'll probably be the murderer, but that's not a problem as in thrillers we tend to know these things, just the characters don't. So, all good on that front. In the second scene I like the awkwardness between the two main male characters, and it appeared a natural response. I had no problems with their names here.

In regards to suggestions, not much really. I only noticed some absences of commas to accent certain words, like: God how much should he apologise for? or the other one: God if he only would smile. (Have a comma after "God." It just puts emphasis on that name. Just read it out loud and see how it works when you say it. If you dwell on the God or a word, put the comma after it.

Lastly, in the first paragraph you wrote: A girl with blond hair... Change "blond" (Masculine) to "blonde (Feminine).

That's all from me for the mo, again, you keep me wanting to read on. Nice tension.

I really like this. It was your cover that attracted me (hot!), then your synopsis. I've read some M/M stories and have liked them: Double the men, how could you go wrong :) Anyway, I only had time (or didn't really, as I was skiving off work) to read your first chapter. I'll review your book one chapter at a time so I can fit it into my breaks. Anyway, here are my views:

I like the two main blokes, Richard Philips and Bill Harper. I thought the scene at the party then when Bill takes Philips home and the stuff in the bedroom was most interesting :) Sorry for the smirks, two hot guys, can't help it. Plus, I thought the scene with Toni was amusing, her make-believe relationship with the handsome guy (was it Harper, Philips, or someone else? I couldn't tell). Anyway, she had me smiling with the "He just kissed me" bit.

So, an entertaining story thus far, something that I would like to keep reading, as said, because of your genre, plus I also like that it's in Australia and not the States for once.

Suggestions:

There were only a couple things that tripped me up. The main one was when Harper left the room, then it jumped to the next night with Philips stirring his 3rd cup of coffee. I got confused when I read him with the coffee because he was just in bed. I then saw it was the next day, but to make this transition run smoothly this needs to be made apparent in the first sentence or a division make with an asterisk between the time differences.

The second thing was this line: "Richard?" the word was a hoarse whisper "Are you awake?" Silence. "Can you hear me?" Philips wondered frantically what he would do if Harper approaches him again.

*I think the above needs to be split into two paragraphs so that you don't confuse the reader. So, put Philip's line starting from: Philips wondered.... in a new paragraph.

Oops, two more things. You use the last and first names of the characters and I did slip up on the occassion, trying to work out which first name went with which last name. I know you have it in he synopsis, but the reader is getting used to the characters so may not remember this. Maybe you could possibly use the fist names only (after the initial intro of the full name)? Just a suggestion. Plus, if you want to have something less formal, use William for the thoughts, but have Bill for the dialogue as those two names are instantly connectable, whereas Bill/William isn't instantly connectable to the surname Harper. I hope I'm making myself clear. I suppose it just takes the reader a bit of time to get used to what first name goes with which last name.

On a minor note, there were a few missing commas separating the name (the person being spoken to) in the dialogue. It wasn't right the way through, just on a few occassions.

If I've totally confused you, sorry, I'm not a morning person, then message me and ask me anything and hopefully I'll be a bit clearer. Also, remember my suggestions are only minor issues, and the main thing was that I liked your sorry and if this was in my hands as a book I'd be flicking through those pages a lot faster than reading off the computer. I do find computer reading less intimate and sometimes reading off it can bring up issues that may not be as noticeable in a paperback. Anyway, I'll stop rabbiting on. Until next time.

Cheers, Marita.

You look up to the sky. You see something gliding across the blue plane. It is a bird….it’s a plan…it’s of course superman. There is a tap on your shoulder. You turn to see….the crit ninja!

http://www.authonomy.com/forums/threads/88310/crit-ninja-/

I like your short pitch. It intrigued me. I wouldn’t want to be in love with a murderer. Your long pitch kind of confused me. In particularly, the gay lover’s line was hard to understand.

Moving on, the first sentence grabbed my attention. The second sentence of your paragraph is a run on. You could break off each statement into a single declaration. The whole rest of the paragraph answered my question, “what does Richard consider in style?” You gave just enough details to develop an image without over doing it.

Further down, I like the section when Harper tries to kiss Richard and then confesses that he only did it because Richard was asleep. However, Harper full confession was very long winded and ruined the mood for me. I think, if you cut it in half and only focus on the most potent sentences, it would have a great impact without going on and on.

Later on, in the store, I feel that whole section should be in the next chapter, because it really has nothing to do with the upper half of the first chapter. The details and back story of the store was interesting, however.

Your writing has a crispness to it. You get your point across with a few vivid descriptions. You need to re-read it though. You favor complex sentences. At times they are missing commas and could use semicolons or em dashes to avoid confusion. I encountered one or two misspelled words.

All in all, I found the read very enjoyable. I wasn’t expecting that; considering, I found your story using the ‘pitch me’ on the front page. I will read on to see where this story goes.

3rd try at a more interesting cover!

Not much interest in this story so far so I have changed the cover (hopefully if it passes) from an artistic bookshelf to a man's body! let's see if this makes any difference...
LV