The beginning here was wonderful! Hafsah Faizal's writing is always great to read and I very much loved how the characters were introduced and the world-building set up in the first few chapters. The details surrounding Spindrift and how vampires existed in this universe captured my attention right away with how intriguing they were.

The different perspectives, mostly Arthie and Jin's POVs, were also very well written and explored. Their friendship was lovely to read about, even as it was challenged a bit throughout the book. I could not have cared less about Flick as a character. Mateo was interesting, though! I wish we had a little more of him around.

The plot was a little messy in several ways. The pace was slow in the first act and it took about half of the book for things to start really developing. That made me feel like the second half was too rushed, especially in regard to some of the twists and decisions made by the characters. They didn't have the impact they were supposed to have and there wasn't enough build up for a few character choices to make much sense.

I am still curious about how the series is going to develop, however, since some pretty cool things were touched on here that still need answers. I could do without the romantic elements... so the focus would be more on the plot/character development side of things.