Whispers of The Deep Book Review
| Pub Date | 7 January 2024 |
| Publisher | Emma Hamm/Self-Published |
| Page Count | 381 pages |
| Genre | Romance, Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction |
| Goodreads Star Rating | 4.06 |
| My star rating | 5 |
Whispers of The Deep Book Summary
Whispers of The Deep by Emma Hamm is a romantic fantasy with a splash of sci-fi. It follows MIra, an engineer at an underwater city, and Arges, a merman that wants to destroy it. But when during one of his attempts, Mira saves his life (and he saves her in return), they form a deep bond that might just save his people and hers.
Whispers of The Deep Book Review
Here’s one thing that wasn’t on my bingo card for 2024 — liking (nay, loving) a monster romance. And yet here we are, dear reader.
In all honesty, what drew me to this one was the beautiful cover (I know, just look at it). However, I was a bit wary of reading it. It’s not like I’m a stranger to fish-boy-slash-regular-girl books. I’ve read Pisces and Shape of Water, after all. But those are more symbolic, introspective, aren’t they? The merman is a symbol of something (usually the woman’s isolation from the world).
This, though — this was a full blown merman romance. And that tends to be quite different. You know, a lot more spicy, sometimes in strange ways. Which is fine. It’s just that I find myself disinterested in spice these days.
So yeah, I was wary.
But this book managed to blow all of my expectations out of the water.
First of all, it’s a slow burn. And just the right kind of slow burn for me. There’s tons of romantic tension to make things interesting, but the characters don’t actually do anything or admit their feelings until about 80% of the book. So be prepared for yearning and waiting.
Arges, our leading merman, does feel attraction to Mira, but to me it felt less about her physical features and more about her personality. He’s not attracted to her when he first sees her. It’s only when she saves his life and does so in a strategic, creative way that he feels any sort of attraction.
There’s some fascination with her features because they’re so different, but he’s genuinely disgusted and confused by some of them more often than not. For example, he doesn’t understand or like toes (me either, buddy).
On Mira’s end, there’s the superficial “oh, this merman has muscles”, but it’s not until he’s actually kind and shows his own personality that she feels any interest.
And what a journey it was to get to the burn part of this slow burn.
They had no way to communicate for the better part of the book because they don’t speak each other’s language. They didn’t even understand each other’s anatomy, physiology or anything like that (like Arges not knowing that Mira can’t survive in wet, cold places indefinitely).
On top of that, their species are enemies. In fact, Arges kidnapped her so he could learn how to defeat humans.
And let me tell you, I love when a couple has so many obstacles, especially a communication barrier, so they have to find another way to talk. I love banter, true, but it was endearing watching Arges and Mira mime and sense their way through their situation.
Everything about their love story was believable and just lovely.
But if you don’t want just romance in your romance books (you hypocrite), there’s an overarching plot to this story — a war between humans and The People of Water. Not like an outright battle, but more like skirmishes and such. And there are sinister things happening below the surface. So there’s a bit of a mystery and action plot as well.
It’s not overwhelming, which I liked, and it adds extra stakes to the story. It also allows our heroes to be very heroic and threatening and protective — who can complain about that?
I also really enjoyed how our love interests were kind of isolated from the world for quite a large portion of the story. It allowed them to really develop as characters and as a couple, and have so many tender, lovely moments without fearing interruption. But at the same time, I enjoyed the side characters too – like Maketes, for example (not Daios, not in this one at least).
All in all, this is the most fun I had with a book in a long time. In fact, it was so fun that I read both this one and the next one within a day and a half. And I can’t wait for November to read Maketes’ story (Echoes of The Tide).
