Its interesting. Yet also kinda...hard to get to know all these characters sufficiently. I think a bit more time with everyone involved would help immensely to understand the characters and the overall plot better; to truly feel involved as a reader. I was not able to form any kind of connection or strong emotional response while reading -it's the extremely fast pacing of the introductions for me...
It felt like I had way more time with those characters at the beginning than with my own MC and their ROs and I would love to have that ❤️ All of them are quite intriguing in a sense and I really want a proper chance of getting to know them a bit better to really form an opinion of them and as such having a feel for them AS fully fleshed out people.
Right now Im left feeling...a bit puzzled? I dont even have all the names down. Maybe its because we got introduced to a RO, get a tiny intteraction with them and then its immediately a new scene with another character and years later... without much context for me as the reader to fill this gap. If you get what I mean? It kinda felt....too fast.
The action scenes at the end were really good though. And, as I said, Im intruiged with the idea and really want to see how this is going to be. Maybe its intentional that I don't feel attached to any character, maybe it kinda has to be that way and your goal with this story is different than what Im used to. I dont know.
Honestly, I would just love to get more time for each scene, each time jump you did 😭 that Dante scene was kinda cute and could've been milked way more to get the reader to fully invest into this connection. And with that the happenings at the party would've had a greater Impact e.g the fact that this person wants to kill you...?
That whole thing with the almost-spouse? I think it didn't elicit any strong emotion from me, sadly. That whole betrayal-theme wasn't what it could be. Which again is ( for me) the pacing of the story, which felt kinda rushed in regard of getting to know everyone.
I hope I could somehow articulate properly enough what I mean. It's hard to describe what felt amiss and I'm investing all this time into trying to describe it for you and hope it is somehow helpful.
I'm definitely checking this IF regulary and am intruiged to get to read more. The suspense at the end of the current demo was really really good!