Dark Moon, Shallow Sea (The Gods of Nig

Phoebe is dead, trapped in the underworld and unable to return. With the Moon Goddess gone, there is no one to give passage to the dead to the underworld, leaving them to wander as shades and haunt the living for their blood. Raef is one of the last followers of Phoebe. He was there when her temple was attacked and was the only one to make it out alive. Seth is a Knight of Hyperion, the sun, but he’s tainted with darkness that he will do anything to destroy. Two boys on opposite sides, yet their fate is tied in ways they never can imagine.

Mystery, magic, and queer romance wrap together to make Dark Moon, Shallow Sea. The plot is well created and kept me turning pages, but it was predictable in places and in others the twists came so suddenly they weren’t enjoyable. The characters are flat, pretty much copy and paste of each other. They all have their own motives and goals, but they are boring. The world-building is well thought out, as if the author created a religion and then built the world around it, and there are real consequences to the death of a goddess.