it can be a secret past, secret identity, secret intelligence, secret powers, anything secret haha.
I prefer character driven novels and I tend to relate more to male protagonists but I’m open to either.
I’m ok with any type of genre— contemporary, fantasy, romance, sci fi… whatever
one of my favorites of this type of character is Eugenides from The Queen’s Thief series.
I was pretty nervous going into this, because for me one of the biggest pulls of Manacled was all the backstory that helped contextualize and build up the animosity and hatred between Hermione and Draco, which in turn makes the enemies to lovers arc feel that much more potent.
I was worried it wouldn’t feel the same in Alchemised, where the characters were original and didn’t have all the backstory, but SenLinYu did an incredible job at world building and making Helena into her own full fledged character, as well as Kaine.
I still felt the emotional pull of their respective situations and although I read Alchemised knowing the basic plotline from Manacled (which I’ve read several times), I still felt very pulled in and on the edge of my seat.
I feel like the changes she made to the plot (for example >!starting with transference as the primary objective instead of repeated rape!< ) improved it without removing the intensity or emotional angst. Because of changes like that I feel more comfortable recommending this book to friends as well even though it is certainly still extremely dark.
Overall I think SenLinYu created something golden in Manacled and the reworking of it into Alchemised was nothing short of brilliant. I know some may disagree, but to me, the world building and universe were perfectly done and the author successfully made the jump from fan fiction to published novel.