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.

This all makes for a really exciting beginning to the story, and given it all happens in the first few chapters, I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that Aron and his companions do manage to evade the ghost ship and make it aboard the pirates’ vessel. Once aboard, he discovers that his rescuer is Zoral, the captain – well, temporarily in command – of the Dreambringer, and that the artifacts are to be exchanged for the life of their actual captain, who has been kidnapped by witches, and that they have only eleven days left in which to deliver the goods.

Undertow is a well-written and imaginative fantasy-adventure, and the quest-oriented nature of the story keeps things moving fairly swiftly as Aron, Zo and the crew are confronted by – and have to fight their way out of – multiple sticky situations. Aron is an engaging protagonist; a bit naive perhaps, but brave and determined, and I enjoyed watching him gaining in confidence and coming into his own later in the book as he discovers more about himself and his origins and abilities. I liked the way he slowly adapts to pirate life and finds friendship and acceptance amongst the crew, who are, naturally, suspicious of him at first, but are slowly won over by his kindness, courage and loyalty. Zoral, on the other hand, is harder to know; he’s likeable, flirty and raffish, but he isn’t as fully fleshed-out as Aron is, which made it difficult for me to fully buy into their connection. But their attraction simmers nicely and the sex scenes are steamy; if there are to be more books in the series, there’s definitely the potential for a deeper relationship to develop between them.

The action scenes are plentiful and well-written and I enjoyed getting to know more about the world’s lore and its magical systems, the warring witch factions, sea monsters, the ghost ship and the dark artifacts, but because there’s such a lot going on the romance feels underdeveloped, which isn’t helped by the fact that Aron and Zo seem to spend a fair bit of time apart. Then, near the end, the author throws in an anticlimactic twist that pulls the rug from under Aron and Zo’s feet and almost renders their entire quest moot, which had me knocking down the final grade a bit more.

But despite those things, I did enjoy Undertow, and would recommend it to anyone looking to try a new – and different – fantasy story. I don’t know if it’s a standalone or if Ms. Ember is planning more books set in this world, but if she is, I’m sufficiently intrigued by what I’ve learned about it to want to read and discover more.

Note: This title was originally conceived as a serial and distributed via the author’s newsletter. I didn’t read the earlier version, so cannot say if any changes have been made.