Gothikana by RuNyx
The longing and confusion in the beginning is exquisite. It didn’t wrap up in a way that I really loved, felt very rushed. But for the first quarter, I enjoyed understanding the MMC only as far as the MFC did.
A lot of the dialogue was a bit cheesy for a gothic novel, but I can’t say I’m upset about it. It feels like it brings a lighthearted air to the novel, cutting a lot of the darkness of the murders and suicides.
The twists weren’t bad in my opinion, and were even a bit surprising, but it rushed too much to wrap up at the end. It would have been perfectly fine to have this novel be book one in a series rather than a standalone. Book one focuses around the suicides/murders and then book two focuses on the ball and disappearances. I just feel like there were a lot of questions left unanswered for a stand alone.
Vad didn’t feel like he had much character growth at all, and I don’t think that’s from a lack of his perspective, I think it’s just a lack of the author caring about him as a character. He had a lot of potential as a brooding gothic lead, but he just kind of fell flat by the end for me. Tragic, since I was so into him in the beginning.
Corvina should have had at least a lil somethin somethin with Jax. She needed to be fleshed out more as a person in society before she fell onto Vad’s cock. I’m not saying a full blown relationship or situationship with Jax, just some light kissing, intentional handholding, maybe some flirting? Just show who she is as a person discovering her sexual identity outside of the MMC and give us more pining and less confusing dramatics. At the midpoint, the confusing dramatics are great because we’ve gotten there organically through character growth and plot, but that’s not really what happened here. There was no real “will they - won’t they”, just “okay, when will they and can we get on with it?” Any tension we had about them potentially getting caught was also nuked with the only person who caught them having knowledge of him being a board member, so, no real danger to their relationship there. At that point I was hoping there was at least some semblance of tension over their relationship potentially being outed, but nope. It wasn’t /really/ forbidden at any point.
Overall, I feel like this should have maybe seen a few more editors/revisions than it did but I still had fun reading it.