It sucked me in from their very first meeting.Īs wonderful and believable as I found the romance to be, the plot was nothing to sneeze at, either. The author didn’t shy away from giving the women real, tangible flaws that make their interactions spark. Swift and Cas’s relationship has it’s ups and downs, and things don’t always go well for them-and that’s exactly why I love it so much.

It’s a romance with real grit and substance. The Abyss Surrounds Us, however, doesn’t fall into this trap. It makes sapphic love stories come across as dull and unbelievable. I suspect this ties back to misogyny, but women in literature are so much more often passive and sweet than men in their same situation.

Not only was the queer representation appreciated, but the central couple is biracial, and the characters represent people of all different ethnicities.Ī complaint I typically have about love stories between queer women is that they’re never allowed to have real grit or conflict. Romantic tropes that are usually reserved for heterosexual couples-tropes like sharing one bed-are adopted into this queer love story. But as the stakes rise and Swift and Cas’s relationship grows, protecting Swift becomes more important than anything.ĭespite its short word count, The Abyss Surrounds Us is one of the only sapphic novels I’ve read to feature a believable, slowburn, enemies-to-lovers romance. If Cas dies, Santa Elena will kill Swift, too. Cas has been put under the care of Swift, a pirate girl who Cas despises. To her shock and horror, the pirates are in possession of an unhatched Reckoner pup, and they have an ultimatum: if the pup dies, so will Cas.īut Cas and the baby Reckoner aren’t the only lives at stake. On Cas’s first solo mission, she is captured by Captain Santa Elena and her crew of bloodthirsty pirates. That’s why I was so excited to pick up The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie, a book about gay female pirates in a futuristic world.Ĭassandra “Cas” Leung trains Reckoners-a type of genetically engineered beast that has been trained to protect ships from the pirate-infested waters of the Neo-Pacific. If you’ve ever met me, you’ll know that I’m a lesbian book lover with a passion for LGBT literature-but queer books are hard to find, especially books about queer women.

The abyss surrounds us book 2