Reviews with content warning for Violence - Hunt on Dark Waters

per my spreadsheet:

this was my first katee robert book and it did not disappoint. i love a good pirate book, and the spice was fun. the way it reads gave me anime vibes

the lower ratings on this book are wild to me. its a fun little book and i'm ready for more of this world.

spice 🌶 - a 4 🌶 spicy (romance.io scale)
length - just right
reading speed - read in 2 days
did it make me cry? - no

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harperhoney's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.25

If you are a big fan of One Piece, Dungeons and Dragons, and multiverses, you will love this book. This book reads like anime, and it's great but also not quite my thing, and I review based on personal enjoyment. The book is fun and we love an anti-c*pag@nda story!! We love many characters with neopronouns!!

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lymadebell's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.25

If you're a fan of Katee Robert's books you will know what this book is about, it's spice with a little bit of plot. What I was very surprised at is this book had a great plot. It even had character development! It was just VERY spicy! 🔥 I was really surprised that how much I liked in this book, we have pirates and witches and a little bit of enemies to lovers and honestly it was a great plot, very well written. There is a wide cast of interesting and lively characters. This whole book kept me interested from probably about chapter 4 onwards, It's a little rough to get into and it is a medium pace book but I would say four spice stars out of five! So if you're looking for a spicy pirate witch book, try this one!

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sweetlittleredw's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I love Katee. I love their writing. I love how they put so many diverse characters and unique relationships in their books. However… this book did not hit the spot. The spice was nice, but Bowen and Evie’s relationship just seemed so surface level. I wish we would’ve seen more of Bowen’s powers. I want to see his and Evie’s powers develop much more in the next book because I will, of course, read the next one. I want to see how their relationship will blossom. I was just left wanting so much. With all that being said… I want phantom hands IYKYK

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chainsiren's review against another edition

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adventurous funny medium-paced

3.5

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albyatross's review

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

*For ref, I have the barnes and noble edition with author notes, and honestly I think that brings the score up since it was nice checking the notes verse the pages.

The writing is fine, the plot is fine, Evelyn and Bowen are good ... separately, not as a couple. Dia is cool, Lizzie was fun. Miles and nearly everyone else was very cardboard prop for plot purposes.

Lots of later plot points happen I think just because they need to happen, certain things seem overly convenient.

The world building had so much potential! And somehow fell so flat! Like the islands move! Your boat is full of people and species from across the multiverse! Where is ANY discussion on culture!? That could have been SO FUN?

Also, I think this book is slightly mismarked bc Bowen isn't a pirate ... he's more like something in the realm of a privateer, since he reports to a council / government, and does not seem to generally engage with the act of theft or plunder (unless we get into, uh, theft of people falling into Threshold maybe, but that seems like a topic beyond what this series could reasonably handle in a thoughtful way). So like if someone actually wanted pirates, plz pick a different book, there are NOT pirates here!!

+ on the spice;

The sex scenes were very insta-attraction and shallow, tbh. Fine if you want sex for sexs sake as both charas have plenty of energy an experience, but overall feels more like horny one night stand energy than anything leading to long-term attachment.

I will probably not read the sequel unless I find it in a LFL for free or something.

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abrielleemory's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

There were a lot of things I disliked about this book, unfortunately. I had high hopes after Neon Gods.

The overuse of the word “paladin” was annoying. The whole plotline with Lizzie was weird.

It almost set up for another book too much. There were too many holes that needed to be filled for things to make sense.

The neopronouns were cool, but really distracting. I’ve never seen pronouns used so heavily for a character in one paragraph. It felt like trying to prove a point rather than just incorporating neopronouns.

Sooooo many characters for no reason. Hedd, Dia, meeting people in the first crew. It was all too much.

I’m glad to be done with this. I won’t be recommending it to anyone.

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