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Part of it might have been that I was convinced there’d be some sort of twist. It should feel high stakes, but it doesn’t particularly. When Tal escapes (spoiler, I guess, but did you really expect that the main character of a book with a pink cover was going to get murdered by pirates? I didn’t think so) he has to race against the clock to save his family and their kingdom from their enemies. The political intrigue feels a bit tacked on even though it is ostensibly the driving element of the novel: Tal is captured and tortured by a group of pirates (they are in there, just briefly) who have been paid to get him to reveal his magic and/or kill him to incite a war. In Deeper Waters isn’t bad, but it isn’t really there for me. But if the romance is the main thing? Do better. I get it if the book is consumed by other things, like if the romance is one element amongst many, you might need the shortcut. But also they fall in love pretty much immediately, almost at first sight, which means that a lot of the plot is the two guys just being like “I’ll protect you because I like you!” “No I’ll protect you because I like you!”Ĭan someone explain to me why so many romance stories go straight to the love-at-first-sight thing? If you’re going to dedicate literally your whole story to one central relationship, surely you can build it up slowly. Yes, it has some magical and political shenanigans, but mostly it is about Tal and Athlen falling in love. Like my last disappointing pirate read, In Deeper Waters skews more toward romance. Even when they are, Garrett is the head of the navy, so all their seafaring is legit. All things considered, Tal and Athlen don’t spend a whole lot of time asea. Every couple of months I’ll read something and be like I wanted pirate stuff and all I got was romance. I go into things expecting silly pirate shenanigans and then I don’t get them. Tal is heartbroken, but that’s not the last time he hears from Athlen or the mysterious gold.įirst of all, there’s significantly less pirate nonsense than I expected. Athlen refuses, charms Tal into releasing him with his magic, and disappears over the side of the boat. The brothers rescue him and Garrett demands that the boy-Athlen-explain what is going on with the gold.

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While onboard his brother Garrett’s ship, Tal stumbles upon a stranded boy with a chest full of gold. Despite the fact that everyone is afraid of him and the family has been pretending that he’s sickly for his whole life, Tal is permitted to go on the traditional coming-of-age tour to see the world. Prince Tal has been hidden from the world his whole life because he possesses a kind of rare magic that he inherited from a power-mad ancestor who torched pretty much everyone and everything. It was already on my TBR, and from the outside looking in it looks a heck of a lot like a story about magic pirates and queer romance. There’s nothing precisely like A Darker Shade of Magic, but when I was looking for something to fill that hole it was with Alucard in mind that I picked in Deeper Waters by F.T.

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My favorite character from that series is Alucard Emery, the mysteriously charming gay pirate who waltzes into the series in book two and quickly wins over both the other characters and the readers.

The series I didn’t want to leave? A Darker Shade of Magicby V.E. You know that feeling when you read something incredible and just want to stay in that world for as long as you can? It puts whatever you read next at a disadvantage.

I finished a reread of one of my favorite series and was loathe to move on.

In deeper waters