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Elvers
Cerise is overdue for a stroke of good luck. At twenty-four, she’s a swimming teacher barely scraping by in Amsterdam—until she meets Gordon, a young and inexperienced heir to a thriving fishing company.
For Cerise, it’s a golden opportunity. Gordon is wealthy, naïve, and ready to fill the hole in his heart. But when cracks start showing in his family’s business, she discovers he’s not as lucky as he seems.
The deeper she dives into his world, the more questions arise. Who else is after his fortune? How far will people go to destroy competition for elvers? And what really happened to his parents?
For Cerise, it’s a golden opportunity. Gordon is wealthy, naïve, and ready to fill the hole in his heart. But when cracks start showing in his family’s business, she discovers he’s not as lucky as he seems.
The deeper she dives into his world, the more questions arise. Who else is after his fortune? How far will people go to destroy competition for elvers? And what really happened to his parents?
147 pages, Paperback
First published March 3, 2025
3 people are currently reading
5 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 11, 2025
This is a challenging review to write as I'm ultimately not sure where I fall on it. If this were a book from a longtime author, I'd give it 1 to 1.5 stars. For a debut author, 3 stars feels more accurate and fair.
The writing is robust and not at all a chore to read, which is why there's such a discrepancy in rating. You can teach narrative craft fairly easily when you have the fundamentals down, but piecing together a compelling sentence, paragraph, scene is something much more difficult to accomplish. You likely won't read Elvers and think the writing is boring. It accomplishes poeticism and linguistic pacing pretty well, balanced between prose and action. I never once thought "this is bad writing," which is promising (genuinely). There is some insecurity in it, a lack of definitive voice, but nothing that comes off soulless or otherwise intolerable.
Where the book ends up faltering is in character development and plot. There is an abrupt end with no conclusion, brought in part by a sudden turn into pretending we're cats. Poetic metaphors are made in situations they aren't warranted, and the POV character, Cerise, is a self-admitted gold digger with no accomplishments who seamlessly takes control of her boyfriend's uber-successful company, resisting violent thugs and revamping the business on a whim. She becomes a loving partner off screen, completely hidden from the reader. We do not see her grow as a person and be given reasons to drop her initial agenda; we instead skip to after the tipping point to when she's already grown and settled into her role as successful executive and caring lover.
The parts we need to see in order to make the story relevant and the characters interesting are missing. We do not learn anything about Gordon beyond that he loves his parents and seems totally ineffectual at anything he does, we do not see Cerise face challenges and grow from them, and we do not see the twist—that Cerise went into the relationship intending to take advantage of someone's wealth but ends up falling in love for real—take shape.
The quality of the writing itself does mean I'd be interested in reading the author's next work, in hopes that a lot of these growing pains will have been resolved.
The writing is robust and not at all a chore to read, which is why there's such a discrepancy in rating. You can teach narrative craft fairly easily when you have the fundamentals down, but piecing together a compelling sentence, paragraph, scene is something much more difficult to accomplish. You likely won't read Elvers and think the writing is boring. It accomplishes poeticism and linguistic pacing pretty well, balanced between prose and action. I never once thought "this is bad writing," which is promising (genuinely). There is some insecurity in it, a lack of definitive voice, but nothing that comes off soulless or otherwise intolerable.
Where the book ends up faltering is in character development and plot. There is an abrupt end with no conclusion, brought in part by a sudden turn into pretending we're cats. Poetic metaphors are made in situations they aren't warranted, and the POV character, Cerise, is a self-admitted gold digger with no accomplishments who seamlessly takes control of her boyfriend's uber-successful company, resisting violent thugs and revamping the business on a whim. She becomes a loving partner off screen, completely hidden from the reader. We do not see her grow as a person and be given reasons to drop her initial agenda; we instead skip to after the tipping point to when she's already grown and settled into her role as successful executive and caring lover.
The parts we need to see in order to make the story relevant and the characters interesting are missing. We do not learn anything about Gordon beyond that he loves his parents and seems totally ineffectual at anything he does, we do not see Cerise face challenges and grow from them, and we do not see the twist—that Cerise went into the relationship intending to take advantage of someone's wealth but ends up falling in love for real—take shape.
The quality of the writing itself does mean I'd be interested in reading the author's next work, in hopes that a lot of these growing pains will have been resolved.
April 12, 2025
This story has true potential — I write this review as a fellow writer with nothing but wishing to offer advice and insight, because the plot is great and the prose/writing style is beautiful.
Here is my unsolicited thoughts on the story.
I really liked the premise of this story and read it fairly quickly because I wanted to know what happened. However, there was a lot of points in the story where I was utterly confused and had to re-read a few times. There is no indication of when we are switching POVs, and often times no switching or any transitions between scenes, and it’s hard to tell where we’re at and whose POV we are reading, and therefore, what’s going on.
There were also several things I wish had been fleshed out more - how did Lily and Cerise go from being not friendly on one page, to being roommates on the next? How did they get so close? Why did Cerise go to the grief meeting in the first place? Did Cerise and Gordon move to Japan at the end? How was Gordon’s father murdered? What was wrong with his mother?
Overall, a wonderful and interesting premise, and Wen has a talent for prose, I just wish there had been a bit more fleshed out details and information.
Here is my unsolicited thoughts on the story.
I really liked the premise of this story and read it fairly quickly because I wanted to know what happened. However, there was a lot of points in the story where I was utterly confused and had to re-read a few times. There is no indication of when we are switching POVs, and often times no switching or any transitions between scenes, and it’s hard to tell where we’re at and whose POV we are reading, and therefore, what’s going on.
There were also several things I wish had been fleshed out more - how did Lily and Cerise go from being not friendly on one page, to being roommates on the next? How did they get so close? Why did Cerise go to the grief meeting in the first place? Did Cerise and Gordon move to Japan at the end? How was Gordon’s father murdered? What was wrong with his mother?
Overall, a wonderful and interesting premise, and Wen has a talent for prose, I just wish there had been a bit more fleshed out details and information.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 14, 2025
Not the usual genre I read, so the review is prone to being biased.
I love the ambition of mixing a cocktail of mystery in a romance novella; however, the mystery aspect is bound to be plot-driven, which can take attention away from the romance aspect, so while reading, it did feel somewhat segregated.
I thought what happened to Cerise in the beginning was a hidden suspense that would be revisited and rejoin the plot towards the end, but that never happened. In terms of world-building, it seemed like every background character was created for the purpose of setting up a passing scene: "...the awful man, mentally ill person, lady at the counter wears a name tag, helpless deaf person, their moment got waylaid by the lady..." and too much of it made the story float.
I enjoyed the cat chapter, although it caught me off guard. I think it was quite poetic and added an interesting element to the story.
I love the ambition of mixing a cocktail of mystery in a romance novella; however, the mystery aspect is bound to be plot-driven, which can take attention away from the romance aspect, so while reading, it did feel somewhat segregated.
I thought what happened to Cerise in the beginning was a hidden suspense that would be revisited and rejoin the plot towards the end, but that never happened. In terms of world-building, it seemed like every background character was created for the purpose of setting up a passing scene: "...the awful man, mentally ill person, lady at the counter wears a name tag, helpless deaf person, their moment got waylaid by the lady..." and too much of it made the story float.
I enjoyed the cat chapter, although it caught me off guard. I think it was quite poetic and added an interesting element to the story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 3, 2025
A phenomenal book that will keep you eagerly flipping pages. I don't want to spoil anything but if you enjoy deep character development and fast pace story telling you have to give it a try.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews