Evermore

In Evermore by Margaret Krivchenia, it’s the 1930s, and young Lisbeth’s life changes when she comes across a dashing young man by the name of Ian Sharples. The two teenagers can’t keep their eyes off each other. They soon start to experience the love of a lifetime, but fate has a plan to keep them apart. No one could predict what would happen to the loving young couple except for Ian’s plotting mother, of course. Ian and Lisbeth have to make drastic decisions that will come to affect the course of both of their lives in good and bad ways. But will they ever come to forgive each other for their choices?

This is a love story that extends across generations. It is both tragic and heartwarming, and the basic premise seems similar to that of a Nicholas Sparks novel. Neither the story nor the characters are honey-coated. The characters have flaws aplenty, and there are very real-feeling aspects to the story, despite the fact that there is much romanticism. The character development is a terrific aspect of the book. Many people like to read about characters like these who feel like real people rather than heroes who never struggle.

Margaret Krivchenia has an unusual writing style and uses a lot of exclamation points. For example, she writes, “Duty calls, even though we would much rather stay! Congratulations, Joseph! You deserve the best of everything. Take that painting and hang it where it can be admired. Our daughter is remarkable!” Most of the sentences are not very direct, and many of them contain a lot of embellished words. She also likes to use a lot of very blatant foreshadowing. Though the hints are not subtle, they actually do help quite a lot in keeping the reader’s interest.

Margaret Krivchenia is not an author who lets readers look through the eyes of her protagonists. She writes about the characters rather than writing through them and giving them their own voice. There are also a few inconsistencies in the story that would have been nice if they weren’t there. For example, the protagonists don’t use the word “evermore.” They use the word “forevermore.” But the book isn’t called that—for what reason, I don’t know.

Overall, the story is modest and lovely, the writing is unusual, and the characters (unlike a lot of protagonists) are real and raw, not idealized. Any true lover of romance and admirer of life-long love will appreciate this book for what it is and enjoy reading about Lisbeth and Ian’s story.

NOTE TO AUTHOR: I would like to suggest studying similar romance novels and comparing them to yours. I think this would be very helpful to you to note what you did well or didn’t do well. I also want to point out that exclamation points tend to lose their significance when they are used too frequently.