Well, that was a prodigious amount of stuff to attempt to cram into a standalone, so the pacing was pretty chaotic. The narrative itself came rapid-fire, and the exposition wasn't so much dumped as machine-gunned directly into your face. Plus, all of that left most of the characters with little room to be more than plot pawns. But, y'know? I had fun reading this. The action was good and romance solid. It did have that sort of hard-to-explain fanfiction vibe, so do with that info what you will. I definitely think I'll be keeping an eye out for this author in the future to see how their works improve!