Oh, lovely, we're in the romance novel stage of this year's reading and it's only March.
In fairness, it's been March for several eons at this point so, like, there's only so much to do about it.
Hall is such an interesting writer because, on the one hand, he has SUCH range in terms of narrative creativity and, on the other hand, when he's writing romance, he has VERY specific ways of writing character. Not that they're all the same, but that he writes the experience of being in their thoughts in a very specific fashion. And if it work for you, it works.

I'm not going to spend that much time pontificating about the romance or the kink other than to say that Hall is, unsurprisingly, doing something interesting with the way he understands kink, submission, and their function in committed relationships. Some of that is the way he spends time focusing on headspace and otherwise I think it's something of a critique of the facile portrayal of BDSM in, well, otherwise facile narratives. Hall's goal as a writer is usually to upend SOMETHING about the reader's expectations. And/but/also I think this book, while manifestly not fanfiction, draws a lot on fanfiction's commitment to exploring relationship dynamics and playing out the question of how do these two+ people WORK as a couple. I'm not sure if this needs a spoiler tag or if I'm just worried that my dad still reads all my reviews...