[Peter Graham]

Hello,

I'm not proposing to do a grammar crit, but one thing that struck me very strongly was that you seem to have two separate voices. The action involving the abused characters is, as others have rightly said, extremely powerful and gripping stuff. Well-written, stark and more than a little harrowing. Absolutely excellent.

However, your second voice (the first scene with Josephine and the fight scene) is rather flat by comparison. We leave the dark world of abuse and vulnerability and look likely to enter the sunny uplands of genre fantasy. I suspect that this is because in your first voice you are writing about things you know about, care about and need to express, whereas in your second voice you are writing about things you have no direct experience of (living in a fantasy landscape). This is not to criticise fantasy landscapes - far from it - but there is a noticeable shift of gear when you have to deal with the world outside the Cellars.

I wonder if the book would be stronger if you set it in the here and now - or the very near future. Both voices would then meld as they would both be narrating what you genuinely know about - the horrors of abuse and the nuts and bolts of the 21st Century. Just my view, but I think that bringing it up to date would make a pretty damn good read.

One other, very minor point. I don't know if you're based in Britain, but if not, you may not be aware that there is a real Dewsbury. Somewhat in the mode of Blake's 'dark satanic mills', but none the worse for that. It has a fish and chip shop called "Wibbits", which will be extremely funny to any member from the north of Britain and incomprehensible to anyone else.

Regards,

Peter