NetGalley Review: This Gilded Abyss by Rebecca Thorne

Hey all, Sam here.

All right, hello, and happy book birthday to today’s review. This is another one of those books where I bought the indie pub version and then just didn’t get around to reading it, so I ended up finally getting around to it in time for the trad pub edition. That’s happened a decent number of times, but hey, I guess that means I’m technically supporting the author twice.

Honestly, I really wish I had even more time for reading and then blogging. Yes, I still manage a decent amount of reading time, but somehow I always feel like my TBR always grows about 300 times faster than what I actually manage to finish reading.

But, I can actually say that I’ve spread the reading bug around my workplace, and several co-workers have either rekindled their love of reading or have recently turned into readers. What is incredibly flattering is that they have all told me that it is because I was always reading during my free time at work that inspired them to get into (or back into) reading.

Actually, Saturday at work, one co-worker rushed to my office because she had a book recommendation for me. It was a book mentioned while she was doing student teaching for her education degree, and she thought it sounded interesting, and that it might also be a book that I might be interested in as well. It’s really heartening to know that I’ve created this book-loving community around me.

Anyway, let’s go ahead and dive on into today’s book review.

Sergeant Nix Marr is a damn good soldier. She’s also desperate to leave her haunted past deep in the bioluminescent ocean, buried alongside her best friend, Quian. So, when Subarch Kessandra, Valkesh’s favorite royal–and Nix’s loathed ex–requests Nix’s help investigating a massacre in the abyssal city of Fall, Nix refuses. Vehemently.

She should have known Kessandra would fight back.

Consigned as Kessandra’s bodyguard, Nix grudgingly boards the Luminosity, a luxurious submersible that offers the only transportation to Fall. But Kessandra wasn’t truthful–surprise, surprise–and her “investigation” isn’t about the massacre, but rather what caused it: an illness that incites its victims into a violent craze.

When another royal is brutally murdered, Nix and Kess realize the disease has spread–and no one on the Luminosity is safe. If they’re going to survive until Fall, they’ll have to trust each other… but considering Kessandra is responsible for Quian’s death, that won’t be easy.

My Thoughts

Rating: 4 stars

The first thing I’m going to say, just in case it isn’t already apparent…this book is NOT cozy. I know we all know author Rebecca Thorne from her more cozy fantasy Tomes & Tea quartet, but this series is not that. This book is like Titanic on a submarine in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. There are trigger warnings for blood and gore and violence.

I am not a fan of zombie stories. I’m just not the target audience. About the only zombie thing I can say that I really enjoy is the Zombieland movies. With that being said, I found the characters in this compelling, and I was invested in their story. Plus these aren’t exactly traditional zombie-like creatures.

This book was eerie and foreboding and kept getting more and more intense as I continued reading…and yet, I didn’t want to set it aside. I wanted to know more about Nix and Kess and this intense situation they found themselves in. The premise and worldbuilding were intriguing to me. I wanted to see how all the bits and pieces of the story and the details the characters knew and learned got woven together.

There were some twists and revelations that I absolutely did not see coming, and I was just as devastated as Nix was upon discovering them. But there was also a major crisis to try and survive, so real processing might just take a little while.

The main couple has some hurdles to overcome considering their past issues, but you can definitely feel their feelings and relationship in every interaction, and I’m really curious to see how it all continues in the second book. Also, the strengths of Nix and Kess complement each other so well; I think they are quite the power couple, no matter their relationship status.

I think there was a lot of political scheming and cover-ups and all sorts of other intrigue that will make the rest of this trilogy absolutely fascinating to follow, especially considering how interested I am in following our leading ladies more. I’m nervously excited and curious to see how the rest of this adventure unfolds, so I’ll be counting down until the next one.

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All right, well that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll hopefully be back soon with more geeky content.