I think this author is very young. It’s written in a very entry-level way that also suffers from the constant American use of “ness” as a suffix, as in “ingeniousness” instead of “ingenuity” or “gratefulness” instead of “gratitude” and I’m not going to lie, it makes me completely insane.
The female characters are strong enough to be considered Strong Female Characters, but are still so weak as to constantly, 100% of the time require heroic intervention from the male characters
The idea that Cass has any kind of “martial art expertise” is laughable, particularly considering that she’s shown no affinity before now
The very convenient blood relationship surprise of Nathan was a bridge too far I think?
Despite all of this, I would give the book 3 stars, and if my theory that the author is very young turns out to be correct I am interested in reading more that they write . The story is interesting. The characters are sufficiently different from one another with different motivations, and it is by no means a boring story.
It feels like a debut effort from a young author who has good potential.