It felt to me like the Deborah/Jael Palethorpe relationship needed, like, another half a book at least to really come fully into balance with the force of Mr. Palethorpe's seduction -- both of them were so clearly using each other for their own ends and to fill in a missing space, and, like, that's compelling and it's possible to go a really interesting place from there, but the book does not get us there!