This Gilded Abyss

By Rebecca Thorne

Originally published March 2019

4/5 🐣🐣🐣🐣

tl;dr: Two exes are forced to spend time together on a dangerous mission to an underwater city. When things go wrong and people start dying, they must figure out if the cause us political or supernatural. Along the way they discover a secret that could destroy their entire kingdom.

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As the first installment of a sprawling horror thriller series, This Gilded Abyss is a twisty, nonstop exploration of the deepest, darkest parts of love, duty and loyalty.

When Sergent Nix Marr is requested for special assignment to Kessandra Marie Vendermere Biltean III, princess, political provocateur and soldier extraordinaire, Nix is forced to face both her darkest fear and her stormy history with the other woman.

But this special assignment is more than Nix bargained for.  Trapped with Kessandra on a three day voyage to the underwater city of Fall, Nix learns that politics can be just as dangerous as a battlefield and that there are some threats that even she cannot overcome by force.  

When passengers start turning up dead with gruesome injuries and rumors of an aggressive and mysterious illness bubbling, Nix must decide where her loyalties lie, an increasingly difficult task, as she begins to question whether she trust her own reality.

A definite departure from her two cozy fantasy novels, Rebecca Thorne creates a creeping sense of dread and claustrophobia in a BioShock-meets-The-Night-Agent world of glittering decadence and crushing secrets. This Gilded Abyss is a fun read that kept me up late into the night. I can't wait to read the next chapter of this story.