What happens when you have a zombie outbreak in the middle of an underwater cruise? Welcome to This Gilded Abyss by Rebecca Thorne. With as much as I’m used to the cozy feelings of the Tea series, Thorne’s newest series is a refreshing change of pace. You really get the feeling of being cramped with no escape as chaos erupts around our characters.
The sapphic narrative is filled with complicated feelings and longing, mixed with rage and hurt. The protagonist has to do her best to weigh her sense of duty against the hurt she’s felt for years after a painful betrayal. If you like the forced proximity or enemies to lovers tropes, you may enjoy this book. I do feel like some of the emotional payoff isn’t earned, but there’s still a very enjoyable story here, despite it leaving you on one hell of a cliffhanger.
My one big gripe is that given the pacing of this book, I don’t know if the singular spicy scene makes sense in the place that it exists. There’s a lot of “we don’t have time for this” throughout the book, and the protagonist having repetitive feelings of being “too late to make a difference”, so taking the time out, in the middle of the chaos of an outbreak, to enjoy her partner really took me out of the narrative.
Still, if you enjoy espionage, action, zombies, and adventure, this is a solid read.
Leave a Reply