I really, really like this story!

This story is so creative and unique! If you are continuing this story, please update soon! :)

hello,

since i have read your story and loved it can you do me the itsy bitsy favor of reading my first ever, baby story I Am Brandy Williams

thank you,

Amber

thats so sad that he has to die. why does there have to be one man that lives in the temple?

good start

ANGSTY!

Ok, so this isn't a real review, but I got really bored, and I finally figured out a way to contact you. What can I say, I got desperate. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

Well, I'll talk to you later, I have to go.

Con

Firstly, before I do review stuff, I'd like to briefly address your review for "I Do Believe in Faeries". Basically, I felt the same way about the story that you did. I've never been particularly good with endings, and I couldn't think of anything that would resolve the story without being cheesy, so I was kinda abrupt. Most of the stories I've posted suffer from similar problems. I'm working on it.

1) Nice description of the garden. Looking at it from several different perspectives makes for a really strong effect.

2)"And after spending most of the last weeks with Analai" 'most of the last couple weeks', maybe? It sounds a little awkward with just 'last weeks'.

3)"Iliya had actually lost her mind for a moment and spoken then. 'Then why is there no writing of her making the world?'" Nice. Everyone likes a good celestial mystery.

4)"She had believed it without fault up until then." Might be just me, but that doesn't seem to fit with the impression I got from the last chapter. Unless she was just debating for the sake of debate.

5)“Why doesn’t the goddess like music?” Oh, man. You can tell the Goddess isn't a nice person from that line. Still, I'm a little curious as to why she doesn't. Analai raises a good question. The Goddess must have some pretty interesting personal reasons for that.

6)"fed, clothed, and otherwise allowed to do as he pleased, within reason." I bet he isn't allowed romance. Not unless the Goddess herself falls in love with him. Poor guy.

7)"Priestess Callie hollered at hr for using her face powders." two things: there's an 'e' missing from the first 'her', and I'm a little surprised by the 'face powders'. I would've figured that a religion that forbids frivolities like music would've disdained spending time on beauty, too. I guess not.

8)“You’re not really the daughter of a demon, are you?” Excellent line coming from Haracio, who I'm sure is her father.

9)"It’s a good thing that we were given these journals as memory exercises, else I might forget my name." Another lovely line.

10)"Then, of course, the contest is over and I’m meek, confused Iliya again." I've fenced a little bit. I know the feeling. Nice.

11)"I told him that if love was as confusing as being friends with people like Analai, I wanted no part of it. He and Flyra laughed again. Analai looked thoughtful." Another good line. Too complex for me to analyze.

12)"Being fond of him will only make it sadder (is that a word?) when he has to die." The casualness of that line makes it into a real cannonball. The reader's scrolling through the story, minding his own business, and then that line hits him in the stomach. Well done.

13)"Iliya didn’t know what to say at all. Analai had some of the strangest notions." You're making Analai into quite a character. Iliya's more likeable counterpart.

14)"also, so the boys themselves, could be there for the choosing," No comma after 'themselves'.

15) This story is, quite frankly, really good. I look forward to the next chapter.

1) Love the introduction. That's a point not often made. Man's relationship with his Gods has always been a weird one.

2)"something bold, as Jordine or Bira or Analai would have done, but her mind blanked and the words caught in her throat," Nice trait. Iliya isn't exactly the action heroine: always ready with a quip.

3)“So no one else matters?” Analai demanded. “The rest of humanity aren’t our people? Are we better than they are?” Nice contraadiction, but it feels a little bit too early to introduce it. The reader's just getting used to the world, and suddenly you start pointing out faults in it. Also, it feels a little extreme for a novice raised from birth in a religious order to challenge it so directly, making points contrary to doctrine. Maybe, since Lidea just said that the novices are her people, Analai could say 'the rest of the city isn't our people?' There's nothing reallywrong with what you have, though. I'm just being nitpicky.

4)"'Friends. You do know what those are?''Theoretically speaking,'" Good line.

5) "And your mother is a prostitute, only with high-end men to pay her." That remark seems a little strange. Would a more matriarchal society have prostitutes? Would they still be considered a bad thing? Heck, would they be female? The tradition of keeping a consort in the temple in case the Goddess should ever desire his services is more or less like having a religiously-sanctioned male prostitute. If the religion has one, I don't see why the commoners wouldn't. But all this is just speculation. The line that you have works. I'm just throwing out alternatives.

6)"She had never thought about it, really; she was there, and she had always been there. Why should she question what the priestesses had always told her?" Good point. Unfortunately, that's the way faith works sometimes.

7)"Analai laid a hand on her shoulder. 'It doesn’t matter,' she told Iliya, sensing the girl’s distress. 'It’s mostly the hair, anyway.'" Another good line. It dispelled all the tension built up from talking about Iliya's past.

8) Good chapter. Whenever you write the next one, I'll read it.

Here we go.

1)"I hid it well, my treason. The loose robes of my station concealed the evidence." That's an excellent line, and an even better opener. It doesn't say anything directly, but the implications are very clear.

2)"The priestess Healers watched over me grudgingly for a few days, to make sure that I did not die before they kill me." Another excellent line. Bitter, but very dignified.

3)"'Oh, really?' She asked in that high-pitched, grating voice of hers." I guess her formality breaks down a little bit, there. Which is understandable. If you wanted to keep it formal, you could change the 'Oh, really?' to an 'Is that so?'

4)“She told me that she was to have a child, an heir to this world. She possessed me, and took me to the man of her choosing, and I bore her child.” Even if she was wrong, I really like that idea. Possibly the Goddess is messing with her. Possibly the Goddess really did want a daughter. Possibly it was another Goddess, trying to interfere with celestial politics.

5)"You will, however, face the Beast." It's always trial by combat with these kinds of fanatics. There's never, I dunno, trial by knitting. No real critique, here. I like where the story is going, and I'm interested in reading more of it.