I had the privilege of working with Rebecca on my most recent manuscript and found the experience incredibly beneficial. She provided high-quality work in a very timely manner and truly helped my novel reach its potential. On top of in-line edits, Rebecca provided a 30+ page edit letter where she gave extensive and thorough developmental feedback. She broke down the feedback by scene and indicated what was working and what needed fixing, making sure to provide justifiable logic and reasoning along the way. Additionally, she gave useful suggestions and helped brainstorm plausible solutions. She made a typically agonizing process painless and enjoyable. Throughout the process, Rebecca remained encouraging, enthusiastic, and professional. The experience and quality of work I received far exceeded my prior experience working with others in the industry. I am immensely thankful to have found her and I am excited to work with her on future projects.

Oh my goodness, Rebecca was so kind and generous with her helpful comments. Her feedback allowed me to go back in and revise while still feeling they were my edits to find. It’s invaluable to have a professional set of eyes to go through my entire draft/manuscript, to let me know where to tweak, and also highlight where the strengths are. It’s so helpful to see what’s unclear or doesn’t jibe with the story, or where I need to tighten up a sentence, or what’s still missing. Especially the chapter arcs! Thank you, thank you Rebecca.

Rebecca gave a thorough developmental assessment of my upcoming sapphic Cinderella reimagining. She poked holes in my world building, asked questions to get me to think about some of the logic, highlighted overuses and redundancies on the scene-level, and she provided links to reading materials she thought I would best benefit from.

This process has helped me pave a path for improvement where I was perviously blind and struggling to pinpoint the specific issues. I now have a path for editing that feels more guided and less like I'm shooting in the dark.

Rebecca was a pleasure to work with. Her analysis of my manuscript painted a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses in each scene and the story as a whole. I appreciated her insightful feedback and suggestions on how to make improvements. Thanks to Rebecca, I now have a clear plan for revising my novella. She will definitely be my go-to developmental editor for future projects

Rebecca has critiqued several of my manuscripts for both novels and short stories. She is a pleasure to work with and timely with her reviews. Her notes are very thorough, and she has a firm grasp on structure and plot beats for a manuscript.

Rebecca’s editorial services are detailed and comprehensive. She gives concrete advice, helping with word choices and plot suggestions. She isn’t afraid to challenge the author, making them dive deeper into their work. Constructive criticism is often difficult to hear, but Rebecca gives positive feedback too. She is a message away if I need clarification or want to get an opinion on an idea. I’m thankful to have been able to work with her and I can’t wait to do so again!

AMAZING. I hope it's not weird to say that I'm glad you got a very rough version of this, because I feel like I've learnt so much from your work on my story. A lot of the things you've outlined are in line with my thinking, and others are so obvious now. And the blurb... wow. I love it. 100% worth the extra investment. Thanks again—it's great having you in my corner.

This was my first time using a developmental editor and I was very satisfied with the feedback I received. Rebecca was friendly and took the time to understand my story and my vision so that she could tailor her feedback to that. While it helped to know that I was on the right track, her insight into how I could take my story to the next level was even better than the edit. I will be using her editing services again in the future!

Rebecca is a detailed, thorough beta-reader and developmental editor, who brings her experienced eye to review the plot, characters, and overall beats of a story to help an author improve. She has a particular gift with evaluating scenes and scene structure, and her chapter-by-chapter reports were especially helpful to me. She is detail-oriented and responds quickly and efficiently. I highly recommend working with Rebecca if you're looking for feedback to help you get your book to the next level.

I worked with Rebecca on a critique of the first three episodes of a dark fantasy series I am publishing on Kindle Vella. The feedback I received far exceeded my expectations. Rebecca not only commented on character development and plot points/story structure, but provided really thoughtful insights on places where the language needed to be clearer. The notes were incredibly clear, actionable, and made me feel inspired about the process of revision. She provided the critique with such delicate balance—constructive but honest! I would not hesitate to recommend Rebecca and plan to work with her again (and again). Thank you, Rebecca, for the thoughtful and helpful notes!

Rebecca Hartwell of Hart Bound Editing provides a clear and concise review of books and stories in their developmental stages. She gives insight into the weak areas of the plot and arching points relevant to moving the story forward while maintaining the readers' interest. She establishes clear expectations of the needs of the readers' age group and where the writer may not fit within the selected group of readers while providing suggestions and samples for addressing those problems. I found her comments and notations invaluable in improving my story and identifying the weaknesses in areas where I was too close or inexperienced to spot on my own. I highly recommend her editorial services and hope to continue using them as my writing career progresses.

Rebecca's thoroughness and thoughtful comments and ideas really help her stand out as a top developmental editor. She pointed out what is working well and more importantly what isn't. I missed entirely how little "conflict" I had in the initial draft, and she made suggestions about how that could be remedied. She correctly pointed out where the novel's pace crawled along and how to fix it. All this on a scene by scene basis. In short, her review was most helpful in assisting me to craft a compelling novel. Thanks!

Rebecca’s advice contributed to the vast improvement of my story, Huntress of Hearts. She offered insight on characters, plot and world building in every chapter. Her analysis is in depth, specific and valuable.

Rebecca’s editorial feedback was instrumental in helping to make my book the best it could be. She gave me some fantastic things to think about within my story and some concrete suggestions for how to strengthen it. I appreciate the genuine time and care Rebecca put into reading my work, sending me a 30+ page chapter by chapter breakdown of what worked well and what needed clarification or second-thought and tied this all back to the story as a whole. She was wonderful at giving constructive feedback which is hard to balance sometimes. Rebecca is incredibly knowledgeable, easily approachable and I recommend her work.

Working with Hart Bound Editing was invaluable. It was an exhaustive scene by scene breakdown of the content and how each chapter lined up with expected story beats. She offered fantastic advice, multiple sources to help me as a writer, and brainstormed ideas on how to make my manuscript stronger.

I will absolutely be using Hart Bound for developmental editing for all my subsequent books.

Rebecca was the first person to read my fledgling attempt at writing a novel and her insight was invaluable. She made me aware of writing conventions that I was unaware of as a novice author. My manuscript was rife with multiple points of view and my story arc was thin. She pointed those two things out to me, as well as other weaknesses and suggested improvements. She also recommended resources to improve my writing.
Rebecca’s feedback included notes on the entire manuscript and on each individual chapter. She mentioned not only the areas in need of improvement, but also the things I had done well. That encouragement was invaluable to me. Another factor that was important for me was her timeliness. She had my manuscript for two weeks and I sat on pins and needles the entire time waiting to hear her opinion. I regard that timeframe as very appropriate for the amount of feedback she provided.

Rebecca is a fantastic editor that helped me to refine and present my concept in a complete and engaging way. Her feedback through each chapter identified areas that needed to be expanded on and improved for reader understanding and was critical to improving the flow of the story. Her prompts provided additional ideas and perspectives that I had not considered and resulted in a significant revamp my early chapters. Rebecca is also an excellent communicator who completed work in a timely manner and exceeded expectations.

Rebecca is the first editor I have ever worked with. I was nervous but her professionalism instantly put me to ease and her leadership and feedback were exactly what I needed to take my project to the next level. She worked quickly, responded to my emails on time and with her I know my work will always level up. Thanks so much!!

Rebecca saw right to the heart of the problems with my manuscript and explained them in a way that I could understand. The level of depth in her feedback on the overall novel was insightful and allowed me to view the issues I was too close to see. It showed me not only what wasn't working but the why behind it too. The per-chapter notes were wonderful, not only to see where I had issues but where I was doing things right. They have been a valuable resource to use when I went back to edit my manuscript. Thanks again, Rebecca!

Rebecca provided professional, in-depth editorial feedback. Her remarks were useful in strengthening my story. I can’t wait to work with Rebecca again in the future.

It’s obvious how much time Rebecca took to read through and make really thoughtful and helpful comments. I cannot thank her enough for such detailed, informative, and helpful feedback. I’m just so overwhelmed with gratitude.
I pretty much write in a vacuum, and to have feedback from a professional is extremely helpful. I feel like this developmental edit gave me some direction and concrete things to do. So much of what Rebecca said about my story makes so much sense. It’s like I try and write then when I reread it, it doesn’t work for some reason, but I'm not sure why. Thank you for giving me the 'why's.

I loved working with Rebecca as my developmental editor! I felt like she really got me and what I was trying to do with my book. It also felt like she CARED about my story and making it the best it could be, and she was willing to follow up with me to refine her comments even more. That, to me, was the most helpful part. Rebecca is not only professional, but extremely knowledgeable when it comes to formula and hard craft (whereas I sometimes operate on vibes alone), so I felt our personalities meshed together really well on this project.

I recently had my second manuscript, of about sixty thousand words, edited by Rebecca. Not only was she able to complete the edit with lightning-fast speed, she provided very clear, direct feedback clearly defining where, and how, the needed changes could be made. She was also thoughtful to suggest resources for furthering my growth as a writer. Rebecca is very communicative and quick to respond throughout the process, and possesses a wealth of historical knowledge - perfect for assessing my historical romance novel. After this process I feel ready and able to tackle the manuscript and shape it into a tighter, stronger story for my readers.

Rebecca reviewed my first manuscript and provided some great feedback. She identified some great ways to strengthen the plot and where I needed to go deeper into world-building. Because of her feedback, I was able to weave in more details and themes throughout my story without overwhelming my readers or fundamentally changing the story I wanted to tell.