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Written by Laurawillington

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Hi bun, from me to you here's your full review. Hope it's helpful. Let me know if you've got any queries...

Place of a woman is to be daughter, wife, mother and grandmother. But in your life you were given the title of King's mistress. You had gladly accepted it and fight for the position of Queen with the King's wife. But then a twist takes place, which changed lives of yours as well as others

If there was a competition for the most frequently used cover picture in a BTS fan fiction, this one of Jimin, doing his traditional Korean fan dance, would be one of the top contenders. It's right up there with that sweaty picture of Jungkook with long black hair (you know the one)

Beautiful but overused, and eye catching but only if you're new to WP and haven't seen the many other Jimin covers with the same image

The synopsis tells of a repressed age and a mistress of a King who aspires to be Queen. The details contain a few missing and misplaced words, so it doesn't read completely right, but it's easy to translate and when readers open your book the story is exactly as the description says

I can't tell where Jimin fits into everything yet because 9 chapters in and he hasn't made an appearance

The title is also a mystery because so far no one has 'escaped' but no doubt this will change as your story goes on...

In your first chapter we get a glimpse at Queen Hayun. Upset over being overlooked for a concubine, Y/N, by the King (Jungkook) who is soft for Y/N and professes to the Queens own face that he only wed her to fulfill his crown duty

Ouch. I felt her pain on that one

But while Jungkook's reaction would scream JERK to anyone with a progressive modern day mindset - I can imagine it's a very accurate one - considering when the story is based, the true to the era lack of women's rights and Jungkook's social standing...

After the second chapter there are mentions of forced abortion, so I'd suggest you add a trigger warning to your description or story. Whilst small, it's still something WP can delete your story for. Just be aware

As things move along, Y/N tries to grapple with her unhappiness at being a consort and makes plans to take the Queens place by Jungkook's side. All the while, Jungkook is a blind man in love with Y/N and is constantly at odds with his wife and his mother, who do not support his feelings

It's obvious from the start that the story is set historically in the Joseon dynasty – when the royal family were steepled in rigid tradition. It got me SUPER excited!

Because there are so few authors who are brave enough to write stories for this period

Capturing the essence of anything with a historical backdrop is difficult because there is truth to it, so you have to be familiar (even if it's to the smallest degree) with the culture, how people acted and talked during that time period to pull off the appropriate vibe

You can't put a character into a Hanbok and at the same time have them wearing snapbacks and saying things like "Go off, Sis"

It just wouldn't have worked

I know it's a fan fic but it's still got to meet boundaries or it would've seemed ridiculous

Overall, I think you did quite well with this so brilliant work! It's obvious you did some research into the time period (or maybe watched a whole bunch of historical K-dramas), you hinted at the stigma surrounding Y/N as a concubine, mentioned the use of talismans and the stripping of titles as capital punishments etc

The language queues were also plausible

There were definitely a few questionable inclusions in there though...

Like, wherever Y/N went she mouthed off at those with much higher stations

Ministers, Royal guards, the Queen and Queen mother included, which, from what little I know, would never have been condoned - unless Jungkook was depicted as a tyrannical King that had no regard for anything but himself to allow this. Which isn't the case, because the Jungkook in your book does have a sense of proprietary and talks about how he can't make his own decisions. So when he does things like being openly affectionate with Y/N in public and then introduces her as his Queen to visitors, it conflicts with how he complains about not being able to do what he wants... cos bruh, don't act like you don't do whatever the heck you want!

To be honest, it was a challenge to find anything endearing about Jungkook and I felt the same about Y/N

Yes, she's a strong, independent woman who knows what she wants and due to her upbringing readers know why she's vulnerable and bitter. But her redeemable qualities were outweighed by nastiness, which made it difficult to get past how unlikeable she was

She wants to use her unborn child as a way into the palace and onto the throne...

Risks her unborn child out of anger toward the Queen...

Thinks about assassinating her for her title...

Is disdainful towards the Queen because of a perceived stolen title...

Shows little respect toward anyone ever...

Girl, bye

But then this is something you appear to consciously aware of as the other characters often refer to Y/Ns behavior as vulgar or wretched – which leaves me wondering what your end game is. Are you gonna pull an UNO reverse? Is there a method to the madness?

Time will tell

But Queen Hayun seems like a sweetheart. The true underdog and protagonist of the story that readers should be empathising with and imagining themselves as

I have no idea where you're going with the role switch but you've got me intrigued for sure

The direction you've chosen to take is an original one as well so you get points for that!

Imagery-wise this appeared to come and go inconsistently. Your storytelling ability was great but otherwise the descriptiveness was simple. Dialogue and actions are generally described exactly as they occur. No more no less. It's not the kind of writing that's gonna get people's imaginations wildin, but given your warning that you're not good with vocabulary I think that's understandable

Despite this, the pace was good. Fast in parts but then you also had enough background information to even it out

Grammar, word usage and sentence structure could use a bit of work however - which I suspect is half because English is not your native language and half because you don't proofread

Many sentences didn't make sense. Incorrect punctuation at the end of dialogue. Incorrect capitalization of dialogue tags. Missing words, incorrect words and placement. Incorrect singulars and plurals, random changes in POV from first person to third party and the lack of separation between different characters dialogue

Your story has a riveting foundation which you deserve props for, but I couldn't really appreciate it in its entirety because I couldn't emote, empathise or relate with the main characters. Some refining in this area combined with an editors touch and your book would be fire!

Keep trying, writing and reading hun... you'll get there

Linney xo

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"I give you all the respect that you deserve as my wife and as the Queen. But do not ask for my love." ~ Jeon Jungkook in The Escape