3.5

I really enjoyed the worldbuilding and characters and a lot of things in this, but the plot resolution felt a bit unsatisfactory to me. There's a graphic rape scene at the beginning (which is dealt with in great detail over the rest of the book) there was a TW for it so I was prepared and read through it alright, BUT there's also a graphic animal death scene that did not have a TW so I wasn't expecting it and it was jarring (less violent than the rape scene by far but since there were TWs at the beginning I thought that would be included but it wasn't)
I'll still probably read the next one but yeah outside the violent scene I felt like the balance between mystery/intrigue and romance/character arcs wasn't the best at times, but that's a pretty personal opinion. Overall I still enjoyed it a lot, and I'm curious about the next book