The Concealers & The Gate To The Unseen World

The Concealers....Your pitches deal with evil mysteries, and yet your cover has a lovely picture of elephants - those gentle giants. I am intrigued.

Ch.1. The word 'black' has so many unfortunate connotations in the so-called 'developed' world nowadays, that I have learned it's best to avoid it altogether. There are many techniques you could employ to tell your readers of the characters' background without actually saying the word. (Texture of hair, ways of speech, etc.)
By the same token it's best not to describe someone as 'fat', except possibly within another character's thoughts or words. You might say Mrs. Moore had a generous behind, waddled when she walked, or something like that.
The language you use makes me wonder if children should really be your target.

That is a very interesting paragraph, explaining about the unseen spirits, which removed the boy's spirit, and it could only be returned to him through the evil charmers.

And the explanatory background story is intriguing, but I'm wondering if it would be better to introduce it in dribs and drabs as the main story unfolds? (Or you may lose a few readers with too much detail too soon).
That's a fascinating tussle between the two spirit worlds, but it could have been told with fewer words.

And then we're back to earth.

I think you mean the conventional world.

You paint a very graphic picture of the flooding river, and it is natural for Lesigne and Wesser to laugh at things they dont understand. (Is there any significance in their names?)

There are some unnecessary words, which it is best to avoid, for they spoil the flow of a story: apparently, usual, kind of, almost, many, only.

You have a good idea for a story, and an opportunity to reveal some of Africa's mysteries to the outside world, but I'm afraid you're going to have to find a dedicated editor to help put your work into more easily readable English. We all have to edit, and re-edit, but it's worth it in the end.
It's taken me nearly ten years to get my book into acceptable readable form, and my mother tongue is English!

I admire your courage in attempting to write a book in a foreign language.

Jane. (Breath of Africa).

Micah, I just finished the first chapter. This story, even though it is extremely visual is carried along by the dialogue and seems to me to be much more one for reading aloud. I started to make notes of places where I thought the sentence structure could be changed, but I realised as I went on that the story is written with a voice that isn’t my European voice, and it would be presumptuous to suggest some of the changes. For example, you say that Mrs Moore is a black lady, the father is black, the boy is black, and I thought that saying they were black was unecessary. By the time I reached the end of the chapter I realised that the inhabitants of Risen Island were of all origins, colours and nationalities, so mentioning their colour is relevant. These are the notes I took, for what they’re worth. Pick out what you think fits, but as I said, your voice is so different, most of what I have suggested is probably irrelevant.

‘The inhabitants of the Risen Island home to the Moores… had ever thought of the possibility of spirits of that World to have possessed a human.’
‘The inhabitants of the Risen Island, home to the Moores….had ever considered the possibility of spirits from that world possessing a human being.’

It doesn’t sound very lucky to be in a coma. Maybe try:
‘Luckily for the young Moore, the convulsions lasted only a few minutes. Unluckily, he then fell into a coma.’

‘Several families from the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and all the other continents…’ That only leaves Australia and Antarctica. Why not say ‘from all over the world’?

‘Anetodes were huge flying dragons, which lived in the Ancient World but had long gone extinct save for the two.’
Anetodes were huge flying dragons that lived in the Ancient World, long extinct save for these two.’

‘But we must first exchange some spirits so that each (of our lots) side has spirits from the opposite world.’

‘dominion over the unified world is shared between (our two lots) both sides.’
‘lots’ in general I think is better rendered as ‘sides’.

The part where the pots of spirits are being thrown backwards and forwards is a bit confusing. I thought at first the avomen would have been on the side of the reptomen.

‘It felt a bit embarrassing for Grace Lesigne and Jack Wesser not to complete their sentence, but Moore didn’t ask for what they were hiding.’
‘…but Moore didn’t ask what they were hiding from him.’

You paint a very colourful picture of a huge array of exotic creatures and spirits. Even your human beings are exotic. It’s a lot to take in in a single chapter. Maybe you could think about taking it a bit slower - the story rattles along at a terrific pace. I hadn’t realised that Grace and Jack had been captured by spirits, until their adventure is explained at the end of the chapter. This mingling of spirit world and exotic human world makes a great story, it just needs slowing a little so as not to bombard the reader with too much detail at once.
I wish you the best of luck with this. I’ll put it on my watchlist and read further chapters when I have time.
Jane

Hi Micah - fantasy is not a genre I am expert in, so my comments may sound ignorant, for which I apologise. Your opening scene is truly gripping - the boy possessed by evil spirits, struggling for his existence. I was immediately hooked. I wanted to follow his journey. I wondered if he was going to be the main character. But very soon you take us away from that scene and begin to explain about the two worlds and all the different creatures, and I began to get lost. There was such a lot of information to learn about the different creatures and their names, but no story to help me get a fix on it. Where are these two worlds? Are they part of Earth, or on different planets? When we came back to the original boy and his companions, I was relieved because I could follow their story. I think you could help the reader by not having such a lot of new facts for us to learn, but keep the pace of the opening story going, and just feed in facts as we need them. I hope this is useful. Frances.

I like the concept. The storyline is engaging but disjointed. It reads more like an oral tale, which is not necessarily a bad thing. If you introduce a storyteller at the beginning and present it as an oral history it would be more palatable. The reader would be able to 'suspend disbelief' more easily and more receptive to the fantasy. You might consider rewriting the dialogue. It seemed a bit peurile but is salvagable.
Overall a good effort and a potetnially engaging book with a rewrite.