Hello everyone!
For tonight, we're diving in deep.
And I mean DEEP, deep.
Because we're about to enter a story about mermaids, and what's more, it's a mermaid story that I REALLY love, or ended up loving in any event.
I wasn't expecting that, because recently the books I've been randomly picking up have been a bit on the eh side, but this one? Chef's kiss.
This one's basically restored my faith in the paranormal romance genre, so I'm now just working my way through another ARC before I grab the second in this series.
So put on your rebreathers and your flippers - it's time for Whispers of the Deep.
As this is the first book in the series and has virtually NOTHING to do with The Little Mermaid, there's going to be no other posts down at the bottom. I'm going to work my way through Emma Hamm's writing, however, and eventually link it all together.
For now, let's begin.
Mira is an engineer, living in the underwater city of Beta - the lands above have become much too volatile and dangerous for humans to survive on, so they've fled under the ocean and founded cities named after the Greek alphabet.
They've also encountered undines.
These are the story's mermaids, and they are PISSED humans are destroying their home, so they've been fighting back. Foremost among them is pod leader Arges, who's been figuring out a way to take out Beta for literally forever, and he's the one Mira meets by accident one day as she's fixing a spot on Beta.
Then, because Arges ruins said spot a little more, she gets sent out into the ocean to deal with it, and Arges kidnaps her, because why not?
Well, in actuality, the ancient leader of their people orders him to do so: kidnap the human, learn her secrets, and learn how they can take Beta with the minimal amount of casualties possible.
So he takes Mira and brings her to a pocket of air underwater in a cave, where the both of them figure out communication's going to be a right pain because neither one can understand the other (despite their obvious fascination). But they hit jackpot when Arges bring Mira an exploration droid, who can fashion translator chips that then get attacked to the skull behind your ear.
Mira slaps one on Arges so at least HE can understand HER, while the droid works on building a language repertoire for the one she'll need.
However, there's plenty of obstacles in the way of this: one, the mermaids of this lore apparently don't even consider the whole, we can't understand each other aspect and don't get it'll take time, because they want Arges to produce results IMMEDIATELY; two, his brother Daios wants blood so he leads the pod in a futile attack on Beta that leaves many dead and him maimed with just the one arm; and three, Arges is falling for his human, and she for him.
This is an unforeseen development, at least for them, because their species have been at war for literally hundreds of years, but the more time they spend together, the more they're inclined to listen to these feelings. Emma Hamm does a really good job developing undine culture and talking about what their courtship rituals look like, how violent their coupling can be since the females are bigger than the males, and how different it is between Arges and Mira since she's gentle, has no webs between her fingers so she can reach his gills easier, and is much more fragile so he has to be extra careful.
Oh and also she teaches him how to kiss. That, too.
BUT she also gets a language chip that now allows them to communicate, and to top it all off Arges and the droid figure out she's sick when Arges has to move her after Daios attacks them both, since Daios things (rightly) that his brother's commitment is wavering.
Mira's fighting a bunch of problems, the most prominent being a vitamin D deficiency since she's underwater and has only been eating fish that Arges brought her. So Arges eventually brings her to a functioning glass dome that's much closer to the surface, that gets warm sunshine because of that, and that used to be the home of another human who apparently thrived there since a garden is left behind in all its glory.
He doesn't tell her about the human, or the skeleton of an undine that he found wrapped around the mortal skeleton, indicating that he and Mira aren't quite the first to try this.
He's got bigger problems, anyway.
He gets viciously attacked by Daios and barely survives, because his brother is convinced that Mira is a witch and a threat, but luckily Mira treats those wounds and he heals quickly, so they can have some rather interesting sex later on - interesting in the sense that, yeah, the author gave a lot of thought how this was all going to work, and ... it works? This is a fictional story, guys, so just keep that in mind and don't bring science into it LOL.
Anyway, Arges literally gets tied down by his people so that the "magic" that Mira poisoned him with can seep out, then one of his brothers (not Daios) gets sent to kill her, but gets the translator chip instead and takes her back to Beta.
Then he brings news to Arges: she's being beaten in Beta, so Arges needs to get his game face on.
Lying that he's over her, Arges takes over his pod again and leads a much more successful attack on the city using knowledge he learned from Mira, actually, and enabling the undines entry into Beta, where - after finding Mira half-dead in the ocean - he makes a beeline for her tormentor, whom he ends up killing.
Mira's taken back to her sunshine dome, and because the undines are capable of physical changes, living underwater as they do and needing to adapt, there have already been significant ones in that Arges can breathe for her if they're connected through one of his tentacles, so THAT's exciting.
She survives, and the couple speak their love to one another, as well as about their plans for the future: namely, Beta doesn't care about Mira, so Mira doesn't care about the human leaders, but she DOES care about the little people. So she's going to help the undines take over Alpha with a plan that involves the daughter of their esteemed leader ... whom Daios is going to kidnap.
Daios is effectively on probation after all the fuck-ups he goes through in this book, and with a chip of his own which helps him understand humans, he now has a task to do which will hopefully help them in the long run.
Because - something that, for some reason, Mira manages to forget - there's another city that people don't even know about. Alpha, Beta and Gamma are known to them. But Tau is the one to worry about, the one her tormentor was from, and apparently the one pulling all the strings, buried so depep not even the undines know of it.
It's probably going to crop up again sooner rather than later, but I feel like the editor kind of missed the fact Mira should have told Arges about Tau LOL.
Either way, our merman and his human are now perfectly happy with a course they charted for themselves, together, under the sea: Arges even had a future shown to him in which Mira could fall pregnant with his child, so now that she has an actual, viable home, and the mermaids of this universe aren't trying to kill her, they can ACTUALLY see if they can forge a path forward, together.
Oh and, the dome of hers? It was created by the explorer who initially helped the underwater cities be built, for his daughter who disagreed with the way they were going about it, and was supposedly declared missing and dead after taking a submarine and never coming back.
Turns out, Alys just met an undine and fell in love with him, and he with her, and her dad wanted her to be happy, so.
True love and all that jazz!
Five thousand stars. Arges and Mira have my heart and my soul; I love the rather realistic transition from enemies to friends and finally lovers, as well as the troubles and trials they face and overcome together (not the least being communication problems!).
I am so ready to see them rule the ocean as King and Queen (they probably won't, but a girl can dream).
I also knew that Alys Fairweather would be important the minute she was first introduced. I'm so glad I was right. And, more of Byte please!! We love us a helpful lil' droid.
Onto the next, gleefully.
I am so ready to see them rule the ocean as King and Queen (they probably won't, but a girl can dream).
I also knew that Alys Fairweather would be important the minute she was first introduced. I'm so glad I was right. And, more of Byte please!! We love us a helpful lil' droid.
Onto the next, gleefully.
xx
*image not mine
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