Please remember that my reviews are just my takes on things, you do not have to take my advice at all if you don't feel it fits the essence of your story. After all, I am only reading a few chapters, other readers might have different takes.

Reverie's Review

Your book title and cover are really cool, from the title alone I would pick it up in order to read the blurb. That being said, let us take a little dive in to see what elements readers would stay for and which can be, in my opinion, improved upon.

Your prose is solid, you have a good command over the language and you get your point across effectively. You have some lines, such as "doubt gnawed at me but voicing it seemed like tempting fate." that are extremely aesthetic and powerful. You don't utilise it too often which is good as it does well to add to the tension without overwhelming. You do have some beautiful lines, I have to say your aesthetic writing, once polished, can be amazing. Your other line "Trust was a commodity rarer than gold" is also one that stuck out to me. I can see that your greatest strength in writing here is personifying intangible concepts in a beautiful and dark manner.

I would like to point out, on the topic of overwhelming the readers, that you have a tendency to reveal a little too much at the start, you need to draw it out further- slow it down. If you drip-feed the reader the information instead of throwing it all at once, the reader will be less likely to get overwhelmed. Instead, you might find that they are encouraged to be even more invested and to want to find out more about the plot and the characters if you tease the dynamics at first rather than just reveal all your cards straight away. You also have a habit of jumping to violence too quickly, maybe more psychological effects would work, I'm not too sure what to call it but more of a mental push and pull rather than a physical one. Another way you can circumvent this is utilizing the tension of being almost hit but not quite would be more powerful. Use the actual contact for very specific powerful moments as they would (literally) pack a punch.

Your characters are believable, I respect that Chris doesn't let Marco bulldoze him and instead stands up to him, revealing a pretty strong backbone. I also am extremely appreciative of the platonic relationship between Chris and Lily. Not throwing in a romantic subplot at every corner, but instead keeping it specific, really helps with the realism of your character dynamics.

A recommendation I would have is to use more physical descriptions of your surroundings. There can be a tendency to experience a little bit of blank room syndrome, making it hard to place the scene in the reader's mind. Two or three sentences on the surroundings using some of the five senses would go a long way in making this issue less stark. You don't have to do much of it, a little set-up at the start of a chapter or every time your camera enters a new area/room it would be helpful to include this kind of information.

In regards to form and content, you are mostly sound. I would suggest that you make your flashback scenes a little more apparent. Play around with form a little, use italics and page breaks to draw out the narrative further, and by extension to pull in the reader even more. In the chapter "Pascoe" I would recommend you reveal information to us via flashbacks and snippets, I would also recommend avoiding saying things along the lines of "in the days and weeks that followed" as you would benefit from letting us know what happened through little reveals of action here. It plays into the "show but don't tell" trope which can be very beneficial in some cases.

Your character introspection is done really well, as is your development and your general setting up of these individuals that populate your world. That being said, I still don't have a full grasp on the intricacies of the plot. This is a good story for a character study and understanding how people work, however, I noted that the overarching story/plot is still a little evasive and needs some more clarification or a speeding up of the pace. After all, I only read seven chapters. But if you push the plot faster and keep the character dynamics as is, you might see it helps!