Undertow by Rachel Ember

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In Sihr, a strange world of endless seas, Aron is a penniless orphan fighting for survival, not looking for adventure. He agrees to smuggle forbidden artifacts in exchange for a fresh start in another village, but the rendezvous goes awry. By the night’s end, a magical accident leaves Aron under the compulsion of Zoral, a steely-eyed pirate who seems to be more shadow than man.

Zoral and his crew only have eleven days to rescue their captain from the witches holding her hostage. He doesn’t trust Aron, but he has no choice but to bring him along on the mission.

As the unlikely pair face haunted ships, kraken battles, and the mysteries of ancient cities lost to the rising seas of their world, they discover a connection that runs deeper than magic.

Rating: B-

I’ve enjoyed a number of Rachel Ember’s contemporary romances – her Wild Ones series was my introduction to her work – and I’ve been wondering for a while if she had anything new planned. Then Undertow popped up for review. It’s a fantasy romance set in a world of endless seas inhabited by terrifying monsters, in which humans live in remote outposts called Towers. The worldbuilding is rich – although there are some things that needed more fleshing out – and I liked the found family element among the ensemble cast, but the romance takes a bit of a back-seat, so perhaps it would be best to think of it as a ‘with romantic elements’ kind of book. Oh – and it has pirates! Can’t forget the pirates 😉

Twenty-year-old Aron is looking forward to getting away from the village in the Leaside Tower where he’s been stuck since the death of his father two years earlier. He’s been eking out a living as a ‘fish’ – someone who swims and dives, tethering ships, retrieving lost items and so on – but hasn’t quite scraped together enough to be able to buy his passage out of there when he’s offered the opportunity to make a tidy sum by delivering an unspecified cargo to an unspecified someone who will rendezvous with him out in the waters at the edges of the world. Aron is well aware that whatever he’s getting himself into is dangerous as well as dodgy, but he decides to go for it. He’s been told not to open the bag he’s been given, but as he’s waiting for his contact, curiosity gets the better of him and he looks inside to discover two metal bands etched with runes, runes lined in black that marks them as Dark artifacts. He shoves them away quickly when he hears oars sloshing in the distance; another rowboat approaches him, the exchange is made and Aron starts to row back towards the tower. But then he sees a trio of sharks making for the other boat. Aron calls out a warning and watches as the three pirates dive into the water leaving the artifacts behind, and watches helplessly as the sharks drag their rowboat beneath the surface. With the artifacts lost, will the pirates want their payment, back, too? Aron doesn’t pause too long to consider his options; without the artifacts, his whole future is in danger and he dives into the deep, dark water to retrieve them. It’s hard to see, but Aron manages to keep out of the way of the sharks – who are more interested in the boat anyway – but he doesn’t have much time. His lungs are almost fit to burst when he finds the two items and grabs them – and is then grabbed from behind by someone who helps him get to the surface and back to his boat, which is now inhabited by the two other pirates.

The big man who helped Aron out of the water tells him they’re going to head back to their ship, and that afterwards, Aron can leave and take the small boat – and his payment – back to the tower, but before they can row very far, they see the water in the middle distance beginning to spin and churn, the swirling current spreading and pulling them back as they try to row away. As they’re drawn closer and closer to the centre of a whirlpool and water starts to cascade into the boat, they see something start to break the surface and watch incredulously as a lichen-encrusted mast, followed by a decayed sail, rigging and then the decks, sides and massive hull of a legendary ghost ship follow. And it’s knifing through the water straight towards the rowboat.

You can read the rest of this review at All About Romance.