Hello! This amazing story has been featured and reviewed for "A Drop of Romeo", a blog that promotes high quality stories on Fictionpresss. Here's your review:

It's been awhile since I've found a high fantasy story on Fictionpress that stole me away quite like "The Mourning Sword". Allary is a headstrong girl who lives a life of relative peace beside her cousin, and King of the human kingdom of Orcad, Fenn. With the tension between Orcad and the neighboring Elvenkingdom rising, it seems one little mistake could bring the two species to war; so when Fenn becomes sick and can't journey to the Elven city of Almeirím in accordance with tradition to take part in King's Week, Allary, as princess of Orcad, must take his place.

Don't you just love when you're so emotionally invested in a story that you get those butterflies in your stomach? Your world falls away and you can become completely involved with an amazing story? That's what "The Mourning Sword" was like for me. There were so many memorable components of the story. Most importantly, the world building was incredibly on point. It's easy to drown in endless facts that you don't care about, or even find yourself craving a deeper explanation in fantasy novels, but that is not the case here. There is an immense amount of knowledge thrown at the reader, but it works so well both because we are learning as Allary learns and the content is incredibly interesting to digest.

On top of all of this, we have the characters, which I adore. Thiago, the love interest and prince, doesn’t disappoint. His charm, wit, and compassion are what ultimately draw Allary (and the reader) to him. King Theodoro is great example of a character who you dislike, but also empathize with on some deeper level. Orlón is charming, friendly right from the moment Allary meets him, and he keeps this up throughout the story. There is also a considerable amount of political elements at play. As we learn more about the problems both the human and the elven kingdoms face, we find Allary caught up in more than she bargained for.

I don’t want to say that this story is without fault, because there are a few things I found to nitpick at. There were a few small grammar issues; one or two times Allary seemed to embody that “not a typical girl” trope. This story was not suggested to me; in fact, I found it on my own. It doesn't have many reviews, regardless of its brilliance and so I’m very pleased to be able to share it with all of you. Enjoy!

Hey, just wondering if you plan to continue this story? I'd hate to see it abandoned. :/

This story is turning out very well. Honestly I didn't think it would be as good as this.
Keep up the great work, I cant wait to see how this story will play out.

I didn't catch when you updated this chapter, but goodness! All the foreshadowing makes sense now! Well done-it was obvious something was up, but this still came as a surprise to me. Fascinating development!

I hope Allary doesn't get caught running about the city. I can't wait for the next update!

Okay. I was kinda expecting the daughter thing but not the Vero thing. I so did not expect that. Good job on this chap although did you add the last part only? Because I remember reading the first part the last time you updated. Anyways, update soon please! :)

Thank you for updating :) But you left off on yet another cliffhanger! I guess I asked how the sword was doing at the right time... I like this, though. I expected it to be outright stolen, not broken. It's more interesting this way...
Update as soon as you're able!

I can't believe you updated so quickly! :) Thank you.
It may not have been your highest-quality writing, but you still moved the plot along and relieved my suspense, and you still write better than many others. I have a feeling we'll be profiting from this month?
Anyway, I'm unclear about what the two three-word phrases mean near the end of the chapter. The second one probably means "I love you" or something but we're not supposed to know for sure? But I don't understand the first of the two...
I'm mildly petrified that the guard will find Thiago there in the morning... Please don't do that. It would be bad for all of them...
How long has it been since Allary has checked to make sure she still has the sword?

Okay but now I need to know what he said ;-;

You did excellent, please update soon. :)

(But I'm not gonna lie I use the same exact tactic when I write.)

Okay, I'm really liking the story so far. It's been really interesting and I'm enjoying the story so far. Update soon! I'm looking forward to the nest chapter :)

Oh goodness, you MUST update soon! That's a dreadful cliffhanger to leave us hanging from! I knew something bad would happen since they were so peaceful together under the tree, but this... This is awful. Poor Allary! My bet is that group of rebel Elves did this to cause trouble-or maybe some random other race, but that's less likely since I don't think you've mentioned other species.
So now is Allary's turn to be strong... I look forward to seeing how she comes to deal with this situation.
I hope you update really soon! I can't deal with the suspense. :p

Hey, sorry if I'm pestering, but I'm just checking in since you haven't updated in a sadly long time :/ Your story is amazing, and you put so much effort into it that I'm guessing you're just busy with the start of school, not giving up on this story, but I wanted to write just to make sure...

Wow wow wow! To me, this story is captivating. The level of detail you put into it is astonishing and VERY well thought out. Everything makes sense, everyone reacts believably, and the characters are believable, which are key elements in the making of a good story. Many stories' downfall is the fact that everything is unbelievable. But you created a well woven, colourful tapestry of a world. There is no spelling errors or any other type of language error that I could see. Your sentence structure and the way everything flows together is, well, perfect, for lack of a better word. I think you would do yourself (and the literary world) a favour by publishing this-after you've finished it here on Fictionpress, of course! You definitely have a talent for writing! Well done!

This is perfect! I was just reading last chapter and thinking that in my review I should suggest a language guide. Then I flipped to the next chapter and while I was quite disappointed to find it wasn't the next part of the story-you sure ended on quite the intriguing and powerful cliffhanger!-I was delighted to find you'd taken my suggestion before I could even give it :D
As for the language guide itself: I knew you were a bit of a linguist :) If you haven't already, I would *highly* suggest either investing in or finding the online resources to The Language Constriction Kit. (I don't know if I can link here but: . ) It's a book by Mark Rosenfelder all about how to build a language for a story, etc. You are clearly doing well on your own, but his book is still incredibly useful, and he has three others which are useful too.
By the way, have some other people give you input but personally, it's a really bad idea to use real Portuguese places/words in a story you intend to publish :( (People names are fine.) It's not as bad as naming your city Paris or New York, but if any of your readers know those cities personally, they might be confused or maybe annoyed to have their names used here. But I'm not Portuguese in the least and you should ask other people too. I'm torn because I love those names... As for using "horse" in Portuguese, I don't think it's a big of a deal but maybe people would be confused or something? I'm not sure.
For your [z] sound, do you mean it is like the English word "massage" or the "j" in French 'je'?
The awesome thing is that last chapter, before I read this, I was thinking about Allary's name pronunciation and I figured just what you said it is :)
In your final draft dictionary, I'd avoid using IPA. I know a little, but most people only know it as a type of ale :p
I don't know how much you know about conlangs... But be careful building your language, because it's hard to change one drastically once it's made. Most of people's first languages are very similar to languages they know well-often English and Romance languages. Then people discover awesome things you can do, like having grammatical gender differentiate between animate and inanimate instead of male and female, and using cardinal directions in place of right and left, and having a language with no verb "to be" or no articles or no he/she distinction. So their second languages are often rather kitchen sink-ish...
Anyway, I'm sorry this review is so long :p But languages excite me. I can't wait for the next update! I want Allary to get to talk to Thiago in private.

I like your method if elvish in this chapter much better. You're a brilliant writer, as always, and I can't wait for the next chapter. Please update as soon as possible. I'm just about craving mor T/A time. ;)

It is a little stilted, but nonetheless well-written enough and your plot is certainly picking up. It's a hard chapter to write, because there are so many emotions involved, and emotions can be tricky. There's a fine line between showing [instead of telling] and over-showing. But I'm sure you'll be able to iron it out and even out the emotion descriptions in a later draft :) I appreciate you working to update this story. Honestly, I check to see if it's updated far more than I'm sure is healthy :p
I didn't even notice you edited your Elvish dialogue method until I read your note-and that is a good thing. It flows much better now :) I noticed the phrases you chose to "translate" from Elvish are often key and important phrases. I'm not sure if that's intentional, but it worked well here so I'd suggest continuing to do that :)
I eagerly await your next update :)