The writing is competent enough, and I sense that there's a good story here, but I have to be frank, I got bored real early. The first problem started off with a pet peeve of mine, so take with a grain of salt: I hate stories that start with a crime scene description/police interview/news reports and the like. They just seem so hohum, so formulaic, a contrived device to dump info into the reader's head, get them "up to speed" from page one. The problem with the crime scene beginning is that t...

Hmmmm, maybe its geared towards women? Then maybe I'm not a good judge of it, so take my two cents worth as, well, worth only about two cents. There's too much chick-litty stuff in it, shopping, dresses, obsessing over body issues (thighs, boobs, etc etc), and lonely-girl-needs-a-man stuff for me. Maybe that kind of thing would be tolerable even to a man, if it weren't so early in the story, and so much of it. It could be interesting perhaps later in the story as kind of an undercurrent, and ...

"single solitary" = tautological adjective (sorry, just a pet peeve.) OK, where do we begin? Well, I stopped on page six, which is one page past my five page rule, which is you got five pages to make me wanna read more, before I go onto something else, which is about 2 pages more than the average bookstore browser. I like your writing. It has an authentic voice that is quite engaging, and it actually makes me want to read more. However, I couldn't go any further with the Dr. Phil opening here...

I'm not sure what I can convey that would be of help, frankly. I didn't read any of the preceding chapters, just this one, so I can only comment about the writing style and not the story as a whole. Stylistically, it rings a little flat especially in the beginning, it just sort of plods along without really grabbing the reader. Let's look a a few passages as examples: "Her destination was so familiar she was practically driving on auto-pilot. She knew every dip in the road, every pothole, eve...

I like it a lot actually. It flows well, and for the most part, the dialogue rings as plausible. I'd detail out the part about the car and the exit, its interesting enough that it deserves more attention. So that's my only criticism is the pace starts off really well, as a reader we want to know what the guys deal is, so you do a great job of building the suspense, but towards the end it seems it kind of wraps it up too quickly. But overall nice work, I'd read more for sure.

Never start ANYTHING with the word "suddenly" NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER! (Among other reasons, it evokes memories of Snoopy perched atop his doghouse, pecking away on the typewriter: "Suddenly! A shot rang out!" , "It was a dark and stormy night.") Why does the whistle "start to" echo? Why can't it just echo? How does one "rapidly" edge towards something? Isn't "edging" a slow, careful, and deliberate action? Read this aloud three times: "as the form of a man begins to coalesce over the altar' "...

Very good, perhaps could be longer.

Well. Hmmm. I like the idea, its certainly original, but without more of the context, it's difficult to know how to judge this piece, ie. a novel, a short story? thriller? Overall, I like the writing style and pacing, good insight into our character's thoughts and motivations. My main criticism is the first part, first paragraph or two, which falls into the common pitfall I like to call the "intro info dump." It's a mode often taken by writers early on in their work. I can hear what's inside ...

Well. Hmmm. I find it a little confusing, but you know what, there's something that does come across that strikes me as quite promising. I think the writer is trying to fuse two concepts together here. I applaud the effort, though its not quite meshing for me, I see potential. Keep writing!

Nice scene, good flow, good voice and tone. Without more, its hard to comment much, but it does seem like a good start to something.