Book Review: Secrets of the Void by Emma Hamm

Okay, so I have to preface this by saying that I love this series. I preorder every book and wait for it eagerly to appear on my Kindle like a child looking forward to opening presents on Christmas morning. These are the stories I relax with, stories that break my reading slumps like nothing else. And I don’t review them the same — though I still like to think about them critically, as you can see in my reviews:

The only criteria they have to meet for me to be happy is this: the romance has to be swoony. And obviously, they have to be readable. 

The former has been an issue only once, but the latter never. This author’s writing is not outstandingly beautiful, but it’s serviceable and it does deliver the scenery like you’re watching a movie or a cutscene in a game. 

Not this time though. Secrets of the Void failed on all fronts. 

So, if you’re a fan of this book/series/author and you don’t want to be offended, please skip this review, because I’m not going to be nice. You’ve been warned. 

Everyone gone? Okay, well. Let’s get started. 

I’d like to begin with the prose. Because why was it this bad? 

I’ll insert some photos where I can, but: 

The word “Massive” was in one case used twice in the same sentence. 

The word “Kiss” was in one case used 9 times in the space of a few paragraphs. 

The word “tongue/tongues” was in one case used multiple times in just a few paragraphs. 

And so on.

And I know that repeating words can be used for emphasis (e.g. a character is feeling lonely, so they repeat “Alone in blah blah blah. Alone with blah blah blah. Forever alone, etcetera), and that’s fine. But this is not a stylistic choice, it’s an editing failure. 

I normally don’t mind grammatical or spelling errors in indie books because I know better than most people that mistakes can slip through even if multiple people had their eyes on a text. But in this case, I believe the first draft got published with little to no editing. If you compare the prose in Secrets of the Void to the prose in Whispers of the Deep, it reads like it’s not even the same author.

Let’s put the repetitiveness and prose aside for a moment, shall we? There were issues beyond that as well. 

A character will say something or something will happen on one page, and then they’ll forget about it on the next. For instance, at the very beginning, we see Proteus being released by the droid called Pilot, and Pilot was created and sent by a scientist. Ellie knows this. But then when she gets jealous later on, she says something along the lines of: “It is not for us to know who released him, that might never be known.” And I was confused, so much so that I went back to the beginning just to confirm that I wasn’t crazy. 

Then they kiss at the end of one chapter (Proteus kisses Ellie, to be exact), “passionately”, as Proteus says, and cuddle after. Ellie even says “don’t ruin this moment with words” at the end. But then at the beginning of the next chapter, she says something along the lines of “I know he was just trying to taste me before eating me”. Like, what?

Those are not the only cases, but we do have to move on. 

It’s never explained properly what Proteus wants to do or why, what this mission of his really is. We’re trying to be mysterious, but then we also have his POV? So how can it be mysterious? Like, sure, we do learn what he wants to do (vaguely) eventually — but why would it be vague when we have his POV?

Ellie, who is a clone, keeps insisting that she’s not human, but in the most on the nose, direct way possible. And I don’t expect a monster romance to investigate the emotional landscape of being a clone of someone and being used as a tool (but also, why not?), but it could at least dig deeper, if that’s a part of the character. 

Also, how is Proteus a sea god? What makes him different from other mermen? Sure, he can see the future, but so can Fortis, the hero of the previous book. He’s bigger, but what does that mean? How is he a god? Why should the people worship him?

Even he swings this way and that — he wants to be worshiped, but he wants to be seen as normal, a part of something, but he also wants to be perceived as frightening, but also not. Which would all be interesting to discuss, but this book doesn’t talk about it in any meaningful way. His thoughts and opinions just switch and change to be whatever they need to be in a given scene. 

Ellie is no better. It doesn’t help that there is no arc here. If she started out firmly believing herself to be a tool, but wanting more, and then tried and fought hard to learn more about the world and herself, and finally feel like a person, and we got to see all of that, it would be great. But we’re just occasionally told that she experienced something new, never shown.

There is a conversation towards the beginning, between Proteus and Ellie, maybe on day two or three of their “collaboration”, which is one of the weirdest, most stilted things I have ever read. I don’t even know how to explain it, so I’ll leave a photo below, because I’m genuinely baffled. It’s so unnatural, especially at this point in the story, that I’m… confused. 

And also, why does Proteus even fall in love with Ellie? She just exists like a wet piece of cardboard. He calls her intelligent and full of life, but all she does with her freedom is clean some sand and read some code. At least the other heroines had something — they were either stubborn, or bullheaded, or learning to let their voice be heard. But Ellie just exists, does what she’s told, and occasionally gets horny.  

And why is she in love with Proteus, for that matter? He almost bites her arm off! In Whispers of The Deep, we see Arges genuinely trying to understand Mira, bringing her food and gifts and showing her his world. In Song of the Abyss, Daios is gentle, kind, and caring. Even in Echoes of the Tide, which I liked the least before this book, the heroes talk a lot and make each other laugh. 

These two are cool-looking cutouts. 

Also, I just have to mention it because… ew. Proteus’ jaw can dislodge/open fully wide. And he has teeth all over his mouth, all the way down his throat. It’s an icky image already, but then he goes down on her in one scene, and his upper jaw/teeth attach to her waist while he sucks down there. Which is just… disgusting. I mean, to each their own, but I just kept going “ew, ew, ew” and laughing through that whole part. 

Plus, the scene begins with her touching herself while she’s alone, and then he comes half-way through and gets under her skirt (yes, she wears a long denim skirt), and she doesn’t even notice until she opens her eyes, when supposedly, he’s so big that he always makes a big splash and tons of noise when he arrives (just…regular arrives, as in comes into the room, not the other thing…). 

To say I was disappointed by this book would be an understatement. But, what can you do? I still love this series and will re-read the first and second one many times. I still love this world. However, I’ll happily pretend this book doesn’t even exist, like we all sometimes do with bad epilogues. Though, I have to say that I wonder if this is the epilogue because I did see hints that there might be more books in this universe since these new, snake-like beings appear. So, I guess we’ll see.