Dark Moon, Shallow Sea - Ida's BookWyrm

Hardcover, 360 pages

English language

Published Oct. 30, 2023 by Blackstone Publishing.

ISBN:: 979-8-200-96676-9
ASIN:: B0C1Q1JCSG

(1 review)

When Phoebe, goddess of the moon, is killed by the knights of the sun god, Hyperion, all who follow her are branded heretics. With Phoebe gone, the souls of the dead are no longer ferried to the underworld, and instead linger on as shades who feast on the blood of the living.

Raef is a child of the night. He lives in the shadows, on scraps, eking out a meager existence as a thief. But when an ornate box is sequestered in the Temple of Hyperion, the chance of a big score proves too great to resist. What he finds within propels him on an odyssey across the sea and back again, altering the course of his life forever.

Seth is a knight of the sun. But unlike the others of his order, the fire of Hyperion only brings him pain. He believes he deserves this penance, exacted for his …

When Phoebe, goddess of the moon, is killed by the knights of the sun god, Hyperion, all who follow her are branded heretics. With Phoebe gone, the souls of the dead are no longer ferried to the underworld, and instead linger on as shades who feast on the blood of the living.

Raef is a child of the night. He lives in the shadows, on scraps, eking out a meager existence as a thief. But when an ornate box is sequestered in the Temple of Hyperion, the chance of a big score proves too great to resist. What he finds within propels him on an odyssey across the sea and back again, altering the course of his life forever.

Seth is a knight of the sun. But unlike the others of his order, the fire of Hyperion only brings him pain. He believes he deserves this penance, exacted for his unknown origins. Tasked with recovering the contents of the box, Seth must also venture beyond the horizon if he’s to learn the truth about himself.

In a dying world divided by the greed of those in power, Raef and Seth find their destinies intertwined—and learn they might have more in common than they ever imagined.

3 editions

Llaverac reviewed Dark Moon, Shallow Sea by David R. Slayton

🌙🌊

3 stars

I hard a hard time buying into the initial premise of the book: since the Knights of Hyperion murdered the Moon Goddess a dozen years ago, the souls of the dead keep haunting the streets and may kill anyone who bleeds, and fish (or food in general) has become increasingly difficult to find. But it's treated as something that happened, whereas it's very much something the head of the main religion ordered, for reasons that only become clear near the end of the book. And people keep worshiping Hyperion without questioning his Knights' actions. If it were me, I think I would be ANGRY. (You could probably write a story about how some religious leaders made their followers' life difficult for selfish reasons and how these followers kept on believing in them, but that's not what Dark Moon, Shallow Sea is about.)

The first half of the book …

I hard a hard time buying into the initial premise of the book: since the Knights of Hyperion murdered the Moon Goddess a dozen years ago, the souls of the dead keep haunting the streets and may kill anyone who bleeds, and fish (or food in general) has become increasingly difficult to find. But it's treated as something that happened, whereas it's very much something the head of the main religion ordered, for reasons that only become clear near the end of the book. And people keep worshiping Hyperion without questioning his Knights' actions. If it were me, I think I would be ANGRY. (You could probably write a story about how some religious leaders made their followers' life difficult for selfish reasons and how these followers kept on believing in them, but that's not what Dark Moon, Shallow Sea is about.)

The first half of the book is a bit of a slog, not bad enough to drop the book immediately, but not good enough to actively enjoy the read. Also, good books with queer male leads written by a queer guy where the MM relationship is not the center of the story but just a part of it aren't easy to find, so I admit I was afraid I would miss the moment where the book finally shines and kept on reading.

On Twitter, the author described the city in which the story takes place as "a dark, mist-filled Venice full of empty canals" and I wish the writing had conveyed this atmosphere as clearly, because the setting felt so dull. It was also difficult to root for the main characters' romance since one of them remains a mystery until the last quarter of the story.

The second half is better: the setting changes, and characters whose viewpoints alternated until this point finally meet each other. The last quarter of the book, in particular, delivers several twists and revelations, although I feel like their impact could have been greater if the characters and their relationships had been more fully developed earlier in the narrative. It felt more like a succession of very lucky encounters than satisfying payoffs.