The Dragon’s Heart
9781616505127
Copyright © 2013, Eden Ashe
Edited by Corinne DeMaagd
Book design by Lyrical Press, Inc.
Cover Art by Renee Rocco
First Lyrical Press, Inc. electronic publication: February, 2014
Lyrical Press, Incorporated
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any
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Highlight doesn’t mean anything to me as a reader — maybe call it “Excerpt” instead?
Add italics here
With setting the “I” off with the dashes, it should be able to be deleted from the sentence and the sentence still work. Which means it should be “we were” instead. And if you do change it here, change it later on as well.
Don’t forget to change this part
Say Alexi’s last name here, because it ends up being a plot point.
I’d put a line here about Alexi surviving, maybe building his own underground network.
Who is this one? This is never referenced in the story.
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The second man here is never referenced again. It’s just mentioned later as a single hunter.
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If he gets sucked into reading/watching the news on her, why was it such a surprise to him of the hell she had gone through via the media in the past year?
Has she been outside it? That makes me think that they’ve been ignoring her, which doesn’t seem to have been the case. Maybe better to say she’s been hiding from it?
You’re aiming for a country-drawl superlative of “purdy,” I think.
Indefinite pronoun — I’m not sure if you mean Daniel or the biker here. If it’s Daniel, the next paragraph needs to be updated. If Daniel is punching him without realizing it, then Daniel isn’t consciously allowing the guy to live.
Check the line spacing on these lines — it’s thinner than the rest of the manuscript.
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I’m not seeing where Daniel got hurt. He disarmed both guys with switchblades/knives. It doesn’t say either made contact, or where he got hit.
Give his sister a name here. She isn’t a character in this story, and the way this reads, it’s Seren that is his sister.
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Wait, I thought Seren was his sister? You had said when he answered the phone that only his sister called him.
you never explain this part. What are the changes that happen to a dragon’s mate? Immortality?
Surgery, or magical healing?
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Is this a clue about her father?
I keep wanting to change this to “and,” but I think “with” might be more of what you’re trying to say. I think you’re trying to say that, out of all the women who were sweet and caring, she was the most famous of them? That’d be “with” instead of the “who.” If she was the most famous, and happened to be sweet and caring, it’d be “and.” “Who” is just confusing to me.
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I think you’re avoiding word repetition with the end of the last sentence, but “add to three” doesn’t make sense — it’s “count to three.”
We’re on page 19, going by Word’s page count. This revelation needs to be much sooner.
Ok, here’s the first confirmation that Seren does magic. Again, move that forward in the book.
Adding something like this will remind readers that Cage had just gotten off the the phone.
This is an indefinite pronoun — I’m not sure which of them has the scar.
How would they know she had the mark?
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This is very late for this revelation — we’re past the 10% mark, and just learning he’s the dragon king.
On re-read, it was mentioned before, in passing, by Seren. Add something earlier so the reader gets a better picture of Daniel. Heck, have him muse into his beer about being a lofty king of the dragons, drinking in a dingy biker bar.
For some reason I was thinking Cage was a Hunter. No? If he is, then we need some justification here as to why Cage is not only able to be in the same room as Daniel without killing him, but how he is married to a dragon. Even just mentioning rogue ones here might be sufficient.
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You never explain what kind of spell he uses here. Heck, you never explain what all magic dragons can use. I know they can make themselves invisible, they can disguise things like the boulder in front of the cave, and there’s Seren’s healing magic. Do all dragons get all types of magic?
I thought there were two people torn apart in her room?
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We still don’t know who his sister is, and why he should still use a replacement word after two thousand years. Especially since he also says fuck and goddamnit.
It was said at the start of the chapter that she had no pain or range of motion issues.
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Seren says “gods,” so wouldn’t Daniel as well?
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She’s able to walk okay now? She — and Daniel — weren’t even supposed to walk from the hospital. Did the hour that pass allow for more healing to take place?
remove the italics here
Yeah, you’re really emphasizing her injury more than you emphasized her not hurting. I’d go back through the previous chapters and revise it so that the wound itself is healing, but she’s sore and physically exhausted. That she has limited movement if she was trying to be cautious, but could move normally if she really pushed herself, and was okay with the consequences afterwards.
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Does she jump up to do that? Or just tilt her head up high?
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Spell it out for the reader. Say he’s Alexi’s son, and Alexi is around and evil.
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Are they immortal too?
How is Seren able to get away with being married to Cage then?
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He’s said fucking before, so would he self-censor here?
You never have him take them off, but he drops the towel to put on the track pants without caring about modesty. Does he get dressed over the wet boxers, or does he lose them at some point?
Also, you use “gray” more often than “grey,” so I’ve updated the “grey”’s to match.
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What about the woman that imprisoned him?
Why weren’t the police at the hospital, anyway? Obviously Seren wouldn’t call the cops after she saw the mark, but she was shot at a premiere. Police would have been all over it. Especially with the dead bodies from the year before.
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He snapped in the previous sentence, so change one.
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Do vampires and zombies and whatnot exist in this universe? Just curious.
Sometimes new chapters have a page break before them, and sometimes they don’t. You’ll want to make it consistent, preferably with a page break.
Whose were they, anyway? The mysterious sister?
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This is a good place to mention that the manager is her dad.
Actually, this would be a better place. Add a line like “My manager is my father, for crying out loud. He’s obviously not involved.”
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Are you sure? She couldn’t get the camisole on.
Didn’t she see his mark, and then remember it when she saw the one appear on her own skin?
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This is the only time you capitalize “King” in a sentence. Either lowercase it, or make it “the Dragon King” as a title instead.
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But Luca said he would, so does that mean Luca is lying to his king? Why is Daniel letting that go — because he shouldn’t have given the order in the first place?
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He should know all of this already, though. He said in the bar that he kept getting sucked into coverage of her. So why is this a surprise, and something none of them knew?
lose the italics here
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If you changed this in the excerpt, change it here as well.
Ok, so was this supposed to be where he gave her his word that he would break the bond? If so, it’s not strong enough, IMHO.
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She’s left handed — wouldn’t this hurt?
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Remember to delete blank lines at the end of each chapter before publishing, so that you don’t get accidental blank pages.
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But it is, based on later conversations. Since we’re in his head, maybe add him thinking that he’s lying to her in saying this?
If his sister isn’t Seren, can you give a name for her at some point?
Do you mean the double meaning here?
Add something like this so we know why she’s familiar with nightmares.
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Whoa, so after I created the comment I changed the “me” to “myself,” and it changed the formatting interestingly. If you turn the ruler on and show formatting marks, you can better see what’s happening here. The indent is set at 1.5 instead of 1 and there’s a hard carriage return/line break at the end of the line in addition to the line spacing. You’ll need to edit those items as well as the line spacing for each section. Just fixing the line spacing will help some, but these lines will scroll weird on different ereaders.
The commas would set the fragment apart—in a case like that, the sentence has to flow without the fragment there. The “to someone” wouldn’t work without the fragment there, so if we don’t want to rewrite the end of the sentence to make it work, we can just delete the commas.
This is a bit at odds with page 58, after he saw the footage. Maybe change this to be him saying words he didn’t fully believe, wanting to get a response from her, to cement what he earlier was starting to believe?
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This could be read two ways, just so you know. He could be confused as to why she’s asking the question (which is what I believe you’re going for). Alternatively, he could be only just then realizing that dragons don’t have friends, and confused as to why he hadn’t thought of that before.
This is what Shelby would say, but how long had Daniel and Luca been friends? Daniel has known Seren for 1k years, and it’d be odd if he knew Luca for 1k years before meeting Luca’s sister.
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You use the concepts of heaven and hell multiple times, and more times are lowercase than capitalized.
Wait, when exactly did she learn his last name? She uses it in the excerpt, but had she been given his name at that point? And if she had known him as simply Daniel, wouldn’t she be thinking of him as Daniel and not his last name?
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That size, or a dragon period?
What/who is they? Specify it’s a bunch of additional dragons.
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All males?
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The paragraphs were doing wonky things here. I couldn’t just hit return before the “She” and get a new paragraph — it wasn’t indenting. I ended up having to cut it and paste it into the next paragraph, then hit return after it.
heh, that’s cute. :)
What does she end up doing with the offerings they give her?
Wait, didn’t she say she was a queen if he was king, and he respond that it didn’t work that way?
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I’m confused here. What is the “it”? Trusting him doesn’t make sense, because why would she need assistance in trusting?
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This paragraph is pretty long for an ebook — it might be a page or longer in an average e-reader. Consider breaking it up into two.
Because you end the next sentence with “to me” deleting this phrase here will eliminate the duplication and tighten this sentence up a touch.
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I’m not sure who is talking, and who they are addressing.
Didn’t she see it on the TV in Daniel’s place?
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Wait, if she was a famous model, how come dad had to resort to unscrupulous ends to get Shelby to get her a part in a movie?
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line spacing. Also, I have no idea why he backs off. It’s the opposite of how he was at the end of the last scene.
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Hmm. Since you have the rogue Hunters, do you want to use the term to describe the dragons?
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At her dad abandoning her, or the fact that Dallas knew it?
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So Dallas is suggesting it was a Hunter that shot at her?
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Interestingly, if you try to delete this carriage return, it moves the “Shelby’s” down to the next line. Look at the ruler again — the right margin-marker is at the wrong spot.
And she never freaked out about that?
remove the italics on these, and check the line spacing on this and the next line.
line spacing, margins, and check the space after paragraph here.
line spacing. And I’m not sure what you mean by “keep her human.”
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So, the last chapter ends with Shelby and the others coming to a realization about her father being found a year ago. Instead of researching what went on with that, they start watching Parks and Recreation?
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Alicia is not necessarily better, but successful as a model, no? Or did that come after she did the role in the film?
Wait, what? Where did that come from? This is the first we’ve heard of this.
You know what would be better here? “I’d like to break his neck.” Sounds like a figure of speech, but it would actually be foreshadowing.
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With his hundreds-years old PTSD, or what?
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aren’t the other dragons still there?
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remove italics
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Do they have an internal radar that tells them when Hunters are near? If so, why didn’t Daniel’s go off when he was entering the ER at the beginning of the book?
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Emphasize what was the worrying part a bit more with something like this, even with the next paragraph the way it is.
Even on re-read, I still don’t get this. First, it’s completely coming out of left field. Second, it reads that Micah is dead, but he’s not. Are you trying to say that Micah is infiltrating Alexi’s organization to ruin it from the inside? That’s my best guess on re-read, but I’m pretty unsure of that hypothesis.
I still want to know more about how Hunters work, travel, etc.
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This an intentional extra space?
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Except she also had time to get out the knife and slash at Dallas’ leg. Did she get him in human or dragon form? I’m thinking human, because dragon scales should have turned the blade away.
I don’t get it. Calling her “baby” is a good thing, and she was able to find the energy to open her eyes, or calling her “baby” wasn’t enough to get her to open her eyes?
Still don’t get it.
Dang, that’s her third in as many days. I hope the magical healing works well on TBIs. :)
Why would they have brought a corpse inside, if he was dead?
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You’ve only called him Adrian once before, when Cage was introduced to Shelby. To remind the reader who the hell Adrian is, when Shelby sees him in the clearing, have her recognize the form as Adrian Cage, not just as Cage.
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Wait, was he looking at evidence from the shooting, or from her bedroom? It’s not clear, and I could see it going both ways.
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Add a sentence in the next few paragraphs to remind the reader who Alexi is.
good twist :)
Luca and his dad’s relationship really needs to be mentioned more throughout.
Wait, that’s right, Luka is Seren’s brother. So the psycho dad you mentioned earlier is Alexi. Who was mentioned in passing in the prologue — which many readers skip, unfortunately — as being a big bad way back when, but Gwen is the main character of the prologue, so the reader presumes she defeated Alexi. And then the woman that imprisoned Daniel was possessed by Alexi somehow. So Alexi is still alive?
Should we know what the Dragan underworld is?
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Wait, I thought Micah died and lost his soul?
I have no clue about the fullness of Alexi’s evilness, Micah’s status, and what the heck is going on.
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How did Cage get down there so fast?
Is the safe house in southern California? For that matter, is the cave? We don’t really get a feel for distances, or how quickly the dragons can fly.
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You need something here, even if it’s just a “was,” but “lived” is a bit better.
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She loves the other dragons? Or did you mean “person” here?
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How old is Cage?
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Commas and periods generally go inside single quotes, and all other punctuation marks go outside.
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Do we know who his sister is?
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They flew to Chicago? How long does that take in dragon form?
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Where did he leave Daniel’s sister? Is she hurt? I don’t think this is ever followed up on.
indents are all messed up here
Magic, or another concussion?
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Where are they driving from? I’m presuming Micah had flown from the safe house?
Why wouldn’t he have done that when she was unconscious?
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How does she know what year it is?
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I thought he tied her feet together?
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what about Micah?
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So when it came down to it, it was a combination of Micah’s power, Daniel’s power, and gunpowder? And why didn’t anyone shift into dragon form? Not enough room?
What was, the bullet?
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Wait, where did his truck come from?
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full justified. Also, eww to the visual of Alexi goo on her.
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Wait, I thought he was two thousand years old?
I’d make this italics
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weird indents on this line
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Only five people knew his number. Why would someone who had gone to the dark side be one of the five?
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This is what you called it previously, at least.
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Wait, wouldn’t that be her left hand? Since she’s left handed?
Why are they driving, and not him flying? It’s a two day drive.
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Only the last line is center justified — I’d either do all center justified, or the last line center and the rest full justified.
update all of this