Nora and Carter

"Absolutely beautifully written story. I specifically appreciate the writer’s style and love Carter’s emotionally aware and level-headed character. I wanted to wait until it is complete before coming to a final opinion on the plot, but thus far, whilst I think the overall intention of the story is great, I’ve struggled to be fully invested in the false alarm/secret element of the storyline. I genuinely understand the thought of needing someone so much that you’d lose yourself and therefore make a decision to leave as not to have doubt you stayed for the wrong reasons. However, based on the way the story started/has been written, the false alarm/keeping it a secret being the trigger for her to go feels under developed in its explanation and could benefit from more back story from ten years ago. She says she didn’t tell him because he would have stayed, but wasn’t he always staying? Was the initial plan that he was going with her? Also, she says that telling him would have meant she would have stayed, but - why? Assuming before the false alarm ever happened she applied for the scholarship (or at least the program/course for which she got the full scholarship), so wasn’t there always an intention for her to leave? Why would having a false alarm, that you know is a false alarm before you go, stop you if you were going anyway? Is it that she thought sharing it with him at the time and him supporting her would have made it hard to leave him, but she was ok with leaving him before that happened? This is by no means a criticism of the story itself, I think the potential is there. Just that how it’s been written vs the impact that it’s had for ten years doesn’t quite reconcile convincingly. That part aside, the writing, structure and present day story is amazing and has all the usual traits of a second chance romance. Definitely excited to read the rest!"