Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language, violence, and mature content.
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140,106 Literary Works • 673,013 Reviews
I haven't read your book leading up to this point, but I thoroughly enjoyed this chapter. I can't believe there aren't any reviews on it yet! I can tell that you've been writing for a long time (or else are very naturally talented). The writing style flows organically, which is sometimes an issue I find with more descriptive prose like yours, but you did a great job of choosing your words and phrases carefully so that the story really just sounded natural. There were a couple lines - I think the first one was "Wendy, despite her want to have another bite and sip, resisted the temptation to walk back over to the morning table, for she did not want to divert herself just yet." - that I think you probably could have cut down a bit. Otherwise, they disrupt the flow and feel unnecessarily long. In fact, that entire line in particular probably could have been cut out. I have this same issue, so I know it's sometimes difficult to walk the line between descriptive prose and "showing, not telling" and being overly flowery and wordy. For the most part, you do a good job of allowing the descriptions to go naturally, but there are certainly times where it feels forced or overwritten, as well.
There were points where you showed versus told, for example, this whole paragraph:
"She had called him Raffie for once. She was accustomed to calling him by his full first name, and only ever called him by his nickname when she felt an overload of pity and empathy for him. Not that she never was empathetic or sensitive, but that she became overwhelmed by a sudden wave of that feeling to cause such a change in her terminology."
is very info-dumpy, which might be forgivable at first (and if she's a new character), but by the seventh chapter, I think there are more smooth ways of revealing this information.
The last thing as far as craft goes are your dialogue tags. If the dialogue itself is strong enough, you shouldn't be putting things like "she said with visceral emotion" because the reader should be able to get that himself. Otherwise, it's just clunky.
In terms of plot and storytelling, this was truly riveting. I definitely was intrigued from start to finish, and the character interactions felt very authentic. I'm certainly interested to read more of your story.