Simon, I read the first part of the first chapter and found a few things that niggled. There is a bigger problem however, sometimes you tend to overstate, treating the reader like a child instead of letting them see for themselves. I skipped through the rest of the chapter to see where the story was going, and it does seem that you have some good ideas and do start to get to the point. The three paragraphs demonstrate what I mean. "He couldn't move anymore, that was the last of his strength." Both parts of the sentance seem to state the same idea. The sentences prior to "David was dead" rather suggested exactly this concept. Early on, I took some notes. Some of your sentecnes are very long and need som more punctuation. Have a look at the following: "Including the children......twenty five people in total at the party." probably needs a comma after Mary. "David and Mary worked.......look after their children." "They were in every cupboard.......in the first four minutes." "All of a John’s best friends would be there." needs the "a" removing. "...were the two had met the year before." should be "where the two..." "...and so was the rest of the twenty two screaming kids." should be "were" instead of "was". also these twenty two kids suddenly become "...twenty three Tasmanian devils." "Who knew a mere cup-cake could make such devastation." is not necessary. Leave the reader to do the imagining, the previous description was more than ebnough. Best regards Warrick