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You might also do something that shapes or foreshadows the future plot.

I saw Marvel's Dr. Strange last night.  There is a lot of symbolism built into the Dr.'s wristwatches.  Don't pay more than three bucks, but go see it to see what I mean.

Imcidentally, the display with the rotating watched should be set vertically.  It's purpose is to keep 'self-winding' watches wound.  Rotation in the horizontal plane will not move the internal winding pendulums.

In battle, it's Sparkle or Sparky.

Museum Of The Moving Image (www.movingimage.us) .  Never been there, looks good.  Looks like a lot of self-directed stuff.  From Flushing Meadows, 7 to Queensboro Plaza, change levels, N to 36 street and a few blocks' walk.  All elevated.

Remember, the primary characteristic of the NYC subway is NOISE.  It's not bad in the modern trains, but outside them it's rough, especially in the tunnels.  The open-cut runs in Brooklyn are probably the best: the earthen walls absorb sound that concrete and tile reflect.

Shea Stadium is gone, replaced by Citi Field.

Collin must be making great progress.

The problem with NYC is noise and crowds.  As far as the subway: The NYC subway has underground, elevated, open cut and grade-level trackage.  The highest station is on the F line, though the walls keep you from seeing very much.  A ride on one of the open lines to the big Coney Island station might be good.  Unfortunately the new cars keep you from looking out through the front door like you used to be able to do.

There's also a Transit Museum featuring old cars.  Do expect lots of stairs.

There's also the PATH (Port Authority Trans Hudson, AKA Hudson Tubes) lines that go into Hoboken, Jersey City, etc.  And, of course, the terrific roadnet views--to be taken outside of rush hour!

A lot depends on the weather.

Oh, golly.  I have no idea what to suggest you see.

What of the Biblical injunction: "You shall not muzzle the ox that threshes the grain"?

Amy, I fear you have learned from the best.

I begin by suggesting you remove the other author's signature/name.

As you say, it's hard to take words like this as helpful, but the critique is not mean-spirited, and the point about not writing the three-star review is a gesture of good faith, as much as it must surely sting.  ('must surely'--meaningless redundancy in modifiers )

I suggest you approach this with strength, patience (with her and yourself) and humility.  True humility knows that you always have much to learn and many things you can learn from.  Strength carries you through the hurt.

(Someday maybe one of you can quote this advice back to me.)

How many readers are as exacting as she is?  I suspect very few.  But getting measured against a high standard can help you.

It's unfortunate that she mentioned this.  It's not a substantive criticism; it's a statement of reader preference, and it can add to the emotional stress caused by the substantive criticism that follows.  (And let this be a lesson to me!  I sometimes do the same thing.)  Put it out of your mind; it is as if a reader said, "I do so like blue-eyed heroes."

Phrased in a most unfortunate way.  Perhaps it needed to be said, but, "If I were you ..." is a stinging phrase that is too damned easy to use.  I'm not saying her points have no merit, though I'd be chary of expecting a community college course to offer just what I need.  Her other suggestions here do make sense.  I'll bear them in mind myself.

(By the way, have you thanked her?  You may have to do it with tears in your eyes, but you might make a friend.)

Yes, and her comments cross these lines.  Moreover, her exacting standards on copyediting and proofreading may keep her from enjoying a great story.  Still, you'd like her to buy it, so her exacting preferences matter.

This may be true, in which case we-your-TNBW-reviewers have not been working hard enough for you.  But make allowances for a character's mental voice coloring sections written in that character's PoV.

Pushing writers to beats instead of tags is a common thing here.  We now have one pro's opinion on the matter.  We've also had contrary opinions.

And yet ... as a reader I find I prefer to have more tags than the 'best advice' says.  Maybe I'm not sure yet of my characters' voices.

Let me digress.  There are several components to character voice, and there is some linkage between them:
1) Word choice (and stock phrases).  (Note also that real speakers DO repeat words; in searching our vocabulary as we construct our sentences, we find most readily the words most recently used.)
2) Grammar preferences
3) Coherence of speech (topics and ideas)
4) The character's concerns and emotive state at the moment, toward first person, second person, and perhaps toward third persons.
5) The character's intent in speaking.

The first two are pretty much fixed, unless your character is drunk or overwhelmed with anger.  The rest vary to some degree with the circumstances of the moment.

A reviewer who is fixated on the first one or two points will miss excellence in the others.

Erle Stanley Gardiner's characters have very similar voices on point 1 and especially point 2.  We see variation most in points four and five.  Gardiner was a successful writer, who turned the courtroom drama into a popular subgenre and made it his own.  His plotting and clue-laying were superb.  He wrote from beginning to end with almost no editing, while switching from story to story to let his typists keep up with him.

So excellence in all five of those points (and any that I have missed) is not necessary, only very desirable.  And maybe if you clear a reader's minimum hurdles on all points, they will hang around to appreciate the points in which you excel.

She's not alone in offering this criticism.  I would strike 'responded' from her list, and perhaps add 'added' and 'noted'.  Also, there are a few 'sound' tags that I consider valid, 'whispered' and 'shouted' among them.  Better writers than I have used 'purred' and similar words, even though we get criticized for them.  I suspect we use them where they are too easily noticed.

This lies between copyediting and production.  TNBW does knock the doubled spaces out, but goes inserting spaces into the HTML it generates.  (Makes me so med.)

Was the modifier 'quite' quite necessary?

Snark aside, the norm varies by genre.  I didn't find your books too long by word or page.  If there's a criticism to be made, I think it's not on command of English, but on flow and structure.  These are my biggest weakness, so maybe I'm projecting.

I disagree with your criitic.

But maybe we need to make things larger than life, like stage gestures, especially when we establish characters.  It's easy to fall into self-parody here.  (Again, a thing for me to take to heart.)

I could point again to Erle Stanley Gardiner, but she's right in general.  Whether the criticism applies to you is another question.

Have strength, and strike the signature from the quoted text.

Who managed to FUBAR everything he touched.  It would be hard to do worse.  And the Fourth Estate is ... well, we've heard it all before.  Let's just see.

Of course the violent and premature deaths of the parents might play a part in it (Lily Potter).