What a great story!
Your OCs are great, they are all so... "lifelike". Most stories with people from Harad have just the "evil" Harads and maby or one or two "heroic victims" of their own people. Your charakters are neither oft that. They are not perfect, but not bad either. I like how the mother acts and how her attitude towards "the foreigner" chances. I like the father and how in-depth his charakter is - knowing his desperation and his "good sides", you do not see him just as evil person, even thogh it is still no excuse for selling somebody (even the word selling sounds incredibly worng here). I like Hakim an I like reading his thoghts about everything and especially about Aragorn (and I like, that he became healer- if I got that right- he should tell Elessar^^). And I think I like Kali most, even thogh we do not know that much about her, as she is still so little, but you described her acting well and she is cute. Somehow I feel as if this whole family were real.
You (and/or Hakim) also described Aragorn great. Seeing him through the eyes of an Haradrim is really interessting and Aragorn's acting and speeking (heroic, but not superhuman) is how I always imaginated him (which is very importent to me).
The content is also very good. You show us perspectives of Harad, which we didn't had and tell us a little bit more about Aragorn, but mostly you tell the story of a family and especially a youg boy, finding himself in a situation none thoght he/they would ever be and that is maybe changing a lot. Even thogh the situation in Harad is not that good at the moment it was enjoyable to read about this family and thrilling. And there is this "other" little story about Hakim in Gondor and it is a really exciting story and how you put that together with the flashbacks and so on was great.
Oh, I have been fevered waiting for the moment they meet and recognice each other, even thogh I wanted the story to last as long as possible. I could have read so much more about Aragorn there. But I think you chosed a good story length nevertheless.
What I wanted to tell you with this terribly long Reviw is: I love your story! (I could have just wrote that, but now you know or sure that everything is great.)
I can't wait for Sunday, I want to read about them talking and... oh, I'm so agog.
Kind regards from Austria! (where I come from, which is the reason for the bad English, sorry by the way)
Until the next chapter;-)
Author's Response: Thank you for the awesome review! It had me grinning from ear to ear. I'm so glad you enjoyed the OCs and found them life-like! They were my biggest concern going into this, since they carry so much of the story and I've never written so much with original characters before. My beta (the poor woman) can attest to this; for weeks, I was spamming her inbox with "does this sound okay? what about this? would anybody even want to read this?" But, once it started flowing, I had a lot of fun with just letting the characters do their thing and insert ambiguity into the story. I'm glad you enjoyed the family and their evolution over the course of the story. And Kali might be my favorite too. ;)
I'm glad you enjoyed the plot as well, even though some of it is a bit dark. Believe me, I also cringed every time I had to use the word "slave" or "selling" but the story seemed to demand it. I'm glad you liked the pacing and that the suspense came through.
I hope you enjoy the rest of the story! Sunday's chapter will be the last "regular" installment while the epilogue that follows will deal mostly with the Gondor storyline. Thank you so much for the incredibly kind review!
-Brennan | 