A Wraith Beneath the Tides by Emilia Jae: Pirates, Sirens and Feminine Rage

Join us as we explore the watery world of A Wraith Beneath the Tides by Emilia Jae. This world is full of pirates, fantastical ships, siren shifters, an underwater kingdom, a spicy romance, and one of the best displays of feminine rage. We discuss the world and our main characters, Esmyra and Draevyn and their enemies to lovers romance. 

Transcript: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2544531/19351514-a-wraith-beneath-the-tides-by-emilia-jae-pirates-sirens-and-feminine-rage/transcript

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Worlds Within, where story becomes space. We're your hosts, Alyssa and Ash, and every episode we explore fictional worlds that don't just live on the page, they pull you in, build themselves around you, and let you wander through them. This is a podcast for readers who don't just love books, they live in them. We dive deep into sensory storytelling, character perspectives, and the world-building mechanics that turn fiction into a fully immersive experience.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

We are back on deck with another seabound episode. We hope you found your sea legs after the Bridge Kingdom because we are setting sail yet again. Today we are exploring the world of Rimel in a Wraith Beneath the Tides by Amelia J. This one is a fun, fun one full of pirates, sirens, gods, and a slow burn Enemies to Lovers Romance, and much, much more. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Okay, but first, you gotta hear us out on our tea selection today. Stick with us. This story has a lot of ships and pirates, and the threat of scurvy was very real. Was it talked about in the book? No. But but it's just assumed. It's my understanding of the world and of pirates and of the ships. Um, so in honor of protecting ourselves from a lack of vitamin C and a nod to the spice in this book, we have landed on an orange spice tea today.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

We might be reaching a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

I don't care. It's gonna taste great. Um, okay, so for our plot, this was published in July of 2025, so about a year ago. It's kind of fun to read a new release, a newer release. Um, and this is the first book in an incomplete series by Amelia J. Raised in secret by the sea's most feared pirate, Asmira Blackwood knows nothing of her past or the origins of her mysterious powers. In the Mortal Kingdom, Draven Roe is the second born son of the tyrant king and the only known file fire wielder of the realm. Asmira and Draven's journeys collide when she kidnaps him to force a trade with the king for her captain's life. But when her barter is refused, she is instead tasked with unearthing a kingdom lost a thousand years prior. Together, the two are forced to navigate a labyrinth of lies and secrets in search of the sunken kingdom. The tides are shifting, and with scheming gods and ancient rivalries at plays at play, alliances will be forged and shattered. The two must decide who to trust and how far they're willing to go for the ones they love. As Mira will face a choice, does their world deserve salvation, or will she be its reckoning?

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Very good. Very good. Uh yeah, I I think I had seen this pop up on a couple of like book talk, TikTok things, you know. Um, but obviously with it being newer, not not long on my TBR. Um, but when we again we picked this season theme or as a potential theme very, very early on. And this was on a short list for this season the entire time. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

I agree. I've seen this pop up on on a few lists online, um, but I hadn't really committed to reading it or it making my TBR until um this season. I also haven't read anything by Amelia J. She also has a completed trilogy, um, the Forbidden Air trilogy, that is also a romanticy. Her website calls it Throne of Glass Meets House of the Dragon, so it could be really good. And while I was just perusing her website, I noticed that she uh mentioned she is a proud Pisces. Represent, um, which I thought was very fitting for the world and the story in this book in particular. Well, tell me about your first impressions. Okay, so you know, I I really liked it. Yeah. I really liked it. I felt like this is what I wanted Court of Winter to be. Um Court of Winter felt a little flat a lot of times, whereas this is still in that like popcorn entertaining read, but the world is a little more fleshed out, it's a little bolder, it's thoughtful, it feels expansive. Um, did I buy the romance? Not really, not really, but I did like Ezmira quite a bit. And pacing, I don't know, I felt it was okay. There were some parts that were repetitive or too long, but overall, just like an enjoyable good book.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Yeah. I mean, from the get, this was this was what I wanted out of this season. Like the swashbuckling pirate adventure was this was what I was like, I was bought in. So I mean, clearly, clearly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Y'all, I'm wearing a tri-corne pirate hat and a flowy shirt. So if you're if you're listening, I'm dressed like a pirate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

I went I went with the pirate bandana. Yeah. Um you're giving Asmira though. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

If your midnight waves and blue eyes.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Thank you. Anyway, maybe that'll be my new Renfair costume. I'll just be Azmira. I mean, I've already been a pirate queen. Anyway. I have been a pirate queen. Back back to the episode. Okay, anyway. Um, so but yeah, I mean, I was just, I was bought in. Again, I think that there, I don't think it needed to be as long as it was. True. I where with Court of Winter we read the first two books because they felt like they could have been merged. Yeah. This one I feel like could have been two separate books. Yeah. Truly. Um, or maybe like it's a book and a half, and like we could have gotten some expansion towards the end on some things and like had them separated a little bit better, like a little bit differently.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's where the pacing got to me a little bit. I was like, okay. We've got a lot of Esmira's like internal world a lot of times that felt repetitive. And I'm like, maybe we could edit it some of that out. Yeah. But anyway, speaking of Esmira, let's talk about our characters here.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Yeah. So she's our female main character. Uh, she is centuries old.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

I love an older female main character.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Yes. I'm so glad that you are not 19.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Um instead, you are 900.

unknown 6:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Um, but she has is described as having midnight hair and like light blue eyes. She's very sassy, she's capable, she's cunning, and she is the first mate to her father's ship. And he's a pirate captain uh of the most infamous ship on the seas, the night wraith. Um he's morally gray. So is she, so is she, which makes sense for pirates. Um, but she's raised on the sea, she has siren magic, but it's described as different than what the extinct sirens used to be. There's a lot of differences, and she can't really reconcile that. And while she loves her life for the most part, it often feels incomplete.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Yeah. She just has this like longing for something else or something different. Uh, she describes it as an aching void in her chest, and someday she saw the sea as nothing but a cage. And we'll talk more about her magic and kind of her backstory. There will be a little this will be more spoilery, just in our understanding and ability to talk about the world. But um, as Mira is a flawed main character, there is a deep feminine rage within her that we see um bubble to the surface uh throughout the book. And I I really liked her as our female main character. Draven, on the other hand, uh, he is our love interest here. He is the second born son to the king of Lefiron, which is one of our kingdoms, and he's fine. Um he was kind of raised as the spare, right? And always seen as dangerous. He has a magical gift of fire wielding that early on he didn't have a lot of control over. And when his father saw that, because his mother there's a long story, but his father saw that and always saw Draven as a threat and as a weapon and as something dangerous. Um, he kind of banishes Draven to be the the admiral of the naval fleet, like you've got to get out of here, and and they have a very complicated, non-loving relationship. Um he gets some some support and some love from his brother, his older brother Atlas, but Draven is just fine to me. He doesn't really have a lot of depth, in my opinion. Where Asmira feels really full and fleshed out and complicated. Draven is like a dude with fire. Yeah. To me.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

And uh even the like the depth that we get of like he thinks that he's a monster because he's been treated as a monster, but he doesn't want to be a monster, which you get a lot of that with Asmira as well. It's just not as well done with Draven as it is with her. Yeah. And again, I like you mentioned in your first impression, I do not buy their romance.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

No, it doesn't, it didn't work for me.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

I mean, I guess spoiler in the spoilery sense, like with them being vessels essentially for these souls that were in love. Okay, but then that doesn't feel real to me. Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Like it feels like you're it's like an attempt at I will love you in every lifetime. Yeah. But it falls flat. Yeah. Mostly because it's not Draven being the soul of Ira is only hinted at. I think it's gonna be explored more in book two. Yes. But like we know it's going there. Yes. I don't know. And it just doesn't feel earned at all. At all. Um a couple other major players on the board that I want to talk about are we talked a little bit about Atlas. Atlas is Draven's brother, and he is just the most boring vanilla dude to me. Like, where Draven at least had some like, I don't know, anger problems. Atlas is like a golden retriever. Like, he's just a good, a good boy. Yeah. Um he loves his brother, he wants to go rescue his brother, and he does, and but Atlas is like I don't know, he's an NPC, yeah. He's just there. However, Serena, whoo! A little different.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

I and I see that you you pulled this out too. So Serena is Esme's long-lost twin sister. Yeah. But it's described like looking into a mirror, only different. What the hell? One has dark hair, one has blonde hair, one has blue eyes, one has amber eyes, one is very, very tan, and one is very, very pale.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

If I looked into the mirror and I saw someone who looked exactly different from me, I would be like, this mirror is not a mirror. So why is this the description? It's like looking into a mirror. And I'm indifferent.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

I understand like the structure. Like the structure and all of those things. Because I mean, I get that with my siblings. Sure. Sadly, side note, there's a picture of my brother and I where we face swapped when that was a thing on Snapchat, but you can't tell that we swapped faces other than the fact that my nose removed from his face or my face to his face. So I get it, like the looking in a mirror that's different. Because like again, my brother has facial hair, you know, now. So like I I could see that, but it it was lost.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

It lost completely, completely. Um, but Serena describes herself as I'm the light of the sea. All things serene and life-giving, just as the sun. Whereas Asmira, who asmi is a nickname, um, is the storm in the depth. So like they are opposite sides of the same coin.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Which vary Piscean in the like light fish, darkfish, very little bit Janice head of like two sides of the same coin.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

But it's not a mirror. It's not a mirror. Anyway, um so Serena is, we come to find out, the Queen of May Renees, which is the Sunken Kingdom. Um, and she certainly knows a lot more than she lets on and is kind of leading as me along of like this this reckoning with who she is. Um, so those are our major players on the board. There are some other side characters, but as far as like the biggest characters, that's those are our kind of core four here. Let's talk about where we are. Whew! Okay. So I put this all together. So normally we would separate this out by like physical location and then the gods and then the magic, but they are so intertwined with one another that I thought we could talk about them connectedly. So we are in the kingdom or the world of Remel, which is uh has three kingdoms, once four. The first kingdom I want to talk about is Lefiren, which is the mortal kingdom. This is ruled by the god Ira, who is the god of rage and war. These humans are known for being avid warriors and fighters, a race of destruction. Such a trope. So human. So human. Not wrong. And they are led by the tyrant king King Ro and his two sons, Atlas and Draven. King Ro, we learn, had offered his sons as kind of sacrifice to Ira and a temple in exchange for magic. And Ira was like, il gross, I'm gonna give the gifts to the boys instead, and like not to you, because that is really shady and gross. So he gives Atlas the power of shadow and smoke, and Draven fire, and rage that has power.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Well, and I think I mean, because he also like where the sacrifice was supposed to be the boys or the boys' souls, instead, he the sacrifice was just a portion of their souls. They had to they become again a a partial vessel of a piece of his his soul, which is where I would assume Draven gets his rage.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Um, but this that moment, like when like when we find out about all that, feels very much the opposite of if we go back to season one in the veins of the drowning, where uh Theo's father was like, I don't have as much power as you. I'm going to give you my power. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Because I and rather than take there's a selflessness to Theo's father versus Draven and Atlas's, who is very greedy and wanting more power. Or any power. Our next kingdom is Sumnai or Sumne, and this is Elven. It is ruled by Viden, the goddess of illusion. Um, we do have some Elven in this story, including Elowin, who becomes Atlas's betrothed, who I really liked, but she's like such a minor character. Maybe there's gonna be more of her in book two, but I thought she was at least interesting. But this magic includes mind illusions. So pulling out a quote here, the elven can't shift. Our magic is that of the mind. We can break into them, make them see what they want them to, their dreams or their nightmares, even make them see things that aren't there. And we see this play out um at one point where one of the night wraith crew feels like they're on fire, but the other one feels like they're covered in bugs, and it is truly just all illusion, like breaking into their minds.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

It was giving uh Georgiana completely from Court of Winter, but um but also like mind magic is so much more frightening because I'm like I now I don't trust her. I don't trust her. I'm like, what who sent you?

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Yeah, how Why did you make yourself so available? W where what is your end goal? Perhaps she also has a piece of soul in her. Right. And so I'm like watching you, Missy. Win. I liked her. The other the other kingdom we have is Terrana, which is kind of a nymph or woodland area. It is ruled by Vilaim, who is the god of growth. Their magic is to manipulate the weather in the soil, but they can also shift. Um the second mate, I guess, uh, to the night wraith is Jack. And when Cyrus Blackwood, who is the captain, is captured, and Alara kind of becomes the captain, Jack becomes first mate. But Jack has a his woodland form of an owl, so you're right. We got a birds within moment. Um, but his feathers were several shades of shimmering silvers and with piercing gold eyes. Just pretty and nice to have an owl flying over your ship, but also very strange to see an owl in the open seas. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

And then finally we have Marinese, which was this was the fourth component to Ramel, um, but it sunk beneath the seas, again, you know, set many, many centuries ago. Um, it was ruled by twin goddesses, Nerissa and Calypso. Um and it hasn't been seen since the kingdom sank. And that's the goddesses, and neither of the goddesses, and it seems that it's just gone, lost. Um again, this is where we get that Atlantean vibe. For sure. Um, but the gods forbid anybody to search for it, find it, talk about it, anything.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

So and this is kind of the seat of Esmira's powers because all of the siren magic was consolidated, I guess we'll say, or came from Neirissa and Calypso. Um, and they have the sirens, so we think, have since become extinct when Mayreneese sank. But Esmira is here as a siren shifter, but her powers are different, as we alluded to. She says at one point, I am not the heir to the sea, Captain. I am the sea, the storm, the depths, the monster within. And I was like, Oh, hell yeah, girl. Like, you are great, and we like it. We like your power. But her siren shifting, um, in contrast to what we saw Imogen do in In the Veins of the Drowning, is more mermaid and not bird. Where we see some overlap is in venomous talons. Uh so as Mira can kind of withdraw her talons or make them appear. She has webbed fingers, a mermaid tail, scales, gills. She can shift her skin like an octopus for camouflage. Her eyes shift from normal human eyes to those with like a slit, um, and then they emit a blue light so she can see. It's I it's pretty her siren shifting is pretty great.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Whenever she would they would talk about like extending her talons, I just pictured Wolverine. Um But I I also thought it was fascinating that like she could shift on command. It shouldn't require, like where some like mermaid shifting tropes are you have to get wet, yep, and then it's you can't stop it if you're wet, so you have to stay dry if you want to have legs. Or like she just did it. Yeah. And it was just like she just willed it to happen. She just thought was that. She's just slip her eyes on and off. Um yeah, I thought I just thought that that was like very a very cool component of the flexibility she had with control with her stuff.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Yeah. Yeah. Um, she also has tattoos all over her skin, and these tattoos on land, or I guess now when she's not in water, are red, almost like burns. But when she gets in water, they glow blue. Um, and she's had them her whole life and she doesn't really know what they mean, but she just knows that they're there. We learn what they mean. But very interesting also that she just has, I don't know, a lot of cool features about her. Another part of her magic is water wielding. Um, she can pull the water from the air and from the environment and turn it into weapons, like a kraken, or daggers, or a sword, or like ribbons of water to help tie people up. Like it's pretty incredible the what she's able to accomplish with her will of the water.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Yeah. Uh it was giving, um, I don't I don't think you ever watched uh the Avatar series, um, but it was giving like waterbender, like pulling the water from the air.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah, for sure. Um, a couple quotes here. The waves instantly responded at her will. The water around the panace surged. Like she's able to rise the tides and make the waves um do what she wants. And then at one point, Draven drowns. Um, and she didn't want him to die necessarily, and she extend quote, extended a talon towards his chest. She directed the seawater within his lungs to expel itself. And I was like, Wow, she's morally gray, but she'd be good right here. Yeah. Here's where we lean towards yeah, we like you right here. And her final piece of magic is her siren song, which love thought was so great and so cool. Um, she first used this song when she was walking through the Kraken Inn at Anchorage Cove. And my note when I highlighted that was just we stand. Like she's just like the baddest bitch in the room. Yeah. She knows it, and she's using her song to get exactly what she wants.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

And it's so powerful, like that it affects the whole room. Yeah. Um, yeah, her siren song could hold them in a lucid trance. Their wills would be dimmer to a mere would be dimmer to a mere flickering candle flame.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Crazy. Okay. We've got some other creatures and pirates. Vampirates, pieces of the world. So, as we said, uh Asmira is a pirate, but she her father also is a pirate, the most feared pirate and kind of king of the she the seas on the night wraith. Quite feared, the ship is entirely black, notorious. And Cyrus is cursed by the gods themselves. He cannot step on land. He has to remain at sea. Very, very Davy Jones. Very Davy Jones, yes. And some of our other creatures that we experience are a sea serpent, which was a myth of Calypso's creation that Asmira encounters uh deep in a trench in the ocean, which makes the ocean very scary. The Leviathan. Yeah. And then something called a Grindilo.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

So that I I made a note there. I was like, oh, Harry Potter much? Yes. Because there's so many references to Grindelos in like those books.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

But they are um they have pale, twisted hands like ghosts in the depths with dark, sickly green bodies, hollow eyes, and sharp teeth. Like, absolutely not. Yeah, no, thank you. I'm gonna stay out of the waters. What I'm learning this season.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Okay, those though were not as scary to me as the creatums.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

The creatums. Oh, these were cave-dwelling humanoid creatures with bodies pale, gaunt, and grotesque, blind, milky eyes glowing faintly, nearly translucent skin stretched tightly over sharp bones and gnashing teeth. And I wrote, This is Gollum plus the mutts from the Hunger Games, but like less reptilian, but like that's what I pictured is just creepy, distorted, grotesque, humanoid things trying to eat me.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Or like uh the zombies in like The Last of Us. Oh, yeah. Like that was what I was like, oh no. No, thank you. No, we don't like them. Ten out of ten pass.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

We don't like them. Um, so we've talked a lot about the world, the gods, and the magic, some of our extra mythical creatures here. But something central to this world are the number of conflicts that we see. And that really drives the plot forward. The first is finding this lost kingdom and the treasure below. So many people are trying to find Mayrenis, Mayronese, May, whatever, um, because of the promise of the treasure, right? Atlantis. Find the sunken kingdom, find the treasure. And so that is that is one of our central conflicts. But another one is the familial conflict that happens in the Roe family.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yeah, so we have uh obviously King Roe has his two sons, and Atlas is his princling, his heir. He's just and he's just a he's just a good boy.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

He's a good boy.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

And then Draven, who, because of the type of power that he wields, is seen as volatile and dangerous and a weapon. Um, and uh you mentioned that he's kind of treated as like the heir in the spare, like he's the spear. He's not even treated as the spare. That's true. King Rose just like go die.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Go die.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

I don't, I like I'm not gonna kill you because it'll go off on this like no man's chase or whatever. Um, so but uh what I love is that you often in these stories you see then the two princes are pitted against each other, and that is not the case. They do have this this beautiful relationship, in my opinion, where they are supportive of one another and um and and they have bonded. But then we also have the conflict between Cyrus and Esmira. Um obviously he stole her as a baby, um, and then lied to her about it. He is a pirate and he he trained her as a weapon, he utilized her skills for his benefit. Yeah, yeah. And when she finds out, man, her heart's broken.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Yeah. Because she kind of always knew, right? She accepted her role of who she was in relation to the night wraith and and to Cyrus, and um, but also loved him as a father because that's all she ever knew for a century. It's like 900 plus years, yeah. Or for centuries, but almost a thousand years is just wild.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Yeah. And and to like she at least, well, she's like, I know that I'm a weapon, but at least, but you saved me. So like it's okay. But no, you didn't uh it doesn't seem like you saved me. Like you kept you kept me from something.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah, yeah. And then we have this the tension between the gods, which we don't get until way later in the book. Um, and this is where we have to be a little spoilery because it's so crucial to the world and our understanding of Ramel and the history here. Uh, so this is this is fairly spoilery, but we learned that Ira, who was the god of war, right, and like ruler of Lefyrin, Kingdom of the Mortals, killed Naerissa and Calypso with the Velsonite dagger. And Velsonite is a type of material that can prevent magic and also kill gods. Um, but he was tasked with with stabbing them in the heart with this Velsonite dagger and capturing their souls.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

But he failed to do the second part. And unclear if that was intentional or not, completely unclear. Like it it could have been an accident, it could have been a mistake, but it's it's written intentional. It's written in a way that indicates that it could have been intentional.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

And Valsenite is um a gift door created by Osiris. And when Serena is talking to Hasmira about all of this, she was like, Who the heck is Osiris? Like, I've never heard of this before. And we learned that Osiris is the god of life and death. What a crucial figure to leave out of the story.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

And like, so okay, so I would understand like Draven being mortal and much, much younger, yeah, not having heard of him. But as Mira, like as Mira, you you were still around. Like, I mean, was it an instant Osiris just disappeared from your lexicon immediately after this event? A lot of questions. So many questions.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Also a question of we we hear through Serena's retelling why Nairissa and Calypso were killed, but that doesn't seem true because I don't trust Serena at all. She says it's because they were jealous that we had two, like two goddesses ruling one kingdom, whereas they only had one, you know, and we were too powerful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Or that their that their kingdom was so much more expansive.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Because it included the sea, but that just doesn't feel right to me. There's something deeper here.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

I I definitely think that like Narissa is a snake. There's something like she and I think that Calypso didn't know. And I think that she's gonna find out. And I think that like Calypso just like because they talk a lot about their power being bound, yes, that they are, and it's kind of a if you want to take other we talked last season about the Cerberus head, yeah, like that if you kill one, you have if in order to kill one, you have to kill them all.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Mm-hmm. Kind of feels that way.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Feels that way a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

After Ira um has killed, I'm using air quotes, Neris and Caleb. So uh May Renee's sunk and then it was bound to the depths. So it's been underwater this entire time, but um as we know, Esmira and Draven find a way in, and Esmira then learns who she truly is from her sister Serena, who surprise, surprise, is actually Nairsa's soul in a different mortal vessel. Whereas Esme learns that she is Calypso in a mortal vessel. Shocker.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Yeah. How interesting, like, and I it's unclear if Cyrus grabbed Esme knowing it was Calypso, I know, like intentional, or if it was an accident and it was just luck. I don't know. I don't know. There's just so many questions of like you can't tell what was intentional and what was luck.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Yes. But Serena says she knows how to restore herself and Esme into their goddess forms to unbind the power that has been kept from them for so long. And it requires an artifact from each of the other gods, which they have, a little bit of blood, and then a chant over their goddess bones, which Esme kind of coincidentally finds. She's like, Oh, these are these bones, and hey, look, these bones have carvings on them that match my tattoos. That's weird. That's so weird. So they perform this ritual, and um Esme kind of she feels all the power of Calypso surge back into her, and it's alarming, it's so it's overwhelming amounts of power. Uh it was pretty incredible. I really liked that scene.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

And then you know, with great power comes great responsibility, and uh she she was now responsible. Not at all. Because she decides that she wants to see her father because she's like, well, if our curse is broken, my father's curse must be broken.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

And at this point, Cyrus has been captured by King Roe and is on land and like dying in a cell.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Yeah, well, not dying, because he can't die, but he can't breathe. He can't breathe, and so he's very uncomfortable, basically being tortured. And she unfortunately, while through the the veil of visions, watches her father get killed. Oops, and Dre, in her mind, does did nothing because he was there originally but then left. But she doesn't quite see everything that's going on. So she just sees that her father has been killed.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

And this comes on the heels of after Esme and Dre have um consummated their relationship. He then is lured into kissing Serena, who has shifted into Esme, and he thinks he's kissing Esme. And then by the time he realizes, oh no, this is Serena, Esme has found them. And so she's like, You've kissed my sister willingly without trickery, is what Esme is thinking, right? And she's like, I've just let down my guard, been super vulnerable with you. We've consummated this relationship, you've helped me through so much. The audacity. How dare you?

SPEAKER_01 32:25

And she gets over that. I mean, not really, but like she comes to terms with it and is just like, she's mad about it, but she's like, I'm gonna be the bigger person and I'm just gonna I'm just gonna deal with it. Right. And it's fine.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

But again, too late. Too late because Draven has been kicked out of May Renee's, and then she's experiences the the veil of visions, which is is giving Quicksilver.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Well, and technically, like he was like removed, yeah, but she thinks that he left. Correct. She's told that he's left. So he has kissed her sister, he has left her in her mind, and now she's watched him apparently let her father die.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

And all of this happens after Esme has uh returned to her full power, and so she rage raises Mayronese from the depths. Serena had said, girl, we need it's gotta be both of us. I'm not powerful by myself. You and I need to do it together. Come, dear sister, we can do this. And Esme's like, screw that. My rage is gonna do this all by myself, and so she does. So you get this scene at the end of the book where Mayronese is rising from the depths, and Esme in her siren form is floating in front of it, holding a trident, just like a vision of feminine rage and power, and you're like, oh no, she's become full villain. It's her DC villain origin story. It was so good, it made everything worth it. Sorry to like completely spoil the ending, but I do recommend.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

But you can't like you have to read it though. Yeah. Because it's just like, and and again, going referencing Atlantis, like if you go with the Disney Atlantis when she's like merging with the crystal and stuff like that, that's very much the vibe.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Ugh. So good. So that's the entire world. Um, we have tension with gods, if we have family tension, we've got magic, kingdoms, pirates, and ships, lots of ship descriptions throughout this book. Um, but tales and illusions. All so good. But let's talk a little bit about some uh sensory immersion and poll quotes here that didn't quite fit anywhere else. But the first being Ash is reading ahead and she's giggling, and I feel like she's giggling at one of two things. You know what I mean? Perhaps the time that Esme hitched a ride on a sea turtle shell. Nope, could be the next one. Somebody on the Night Wraith crew said, We're out of rum. And I just wrote, What a tragedy.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

It's so pirate. And it again, there's where we go more pirates of the Caribbean. Because there's a couple references, like, uh, we're almost out of rum. Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

And it's like, okay, yeah, all right, cool, figure it out. Um, anyway, back to the sensory part of it. There is this quote early on. It's the clang of a blacksmith's hammer, the cheerful bantering of civilians, the laughter of children chasing each other between the madness. And I wrote, Little town, it's a quiet village. But just that's that's how we're building out this world, and what I'm thinking about um early on in Lefiren.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Yeah. Um, we we get a lot about um the way that Esme talks. Yeah. Um, so her words are well, not just Esme, but every like the way that people talk is very not personified, but intentional. So his words dripped with wicked anticipation, or her voice was like smoke and honey.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

And they're just there, there's a lot of that. Like, even with like the wind and the way things sound, it's it's very cozy and yes, lyrical is a great way to describe that.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Yeah, yeah. Even the soft creak of oars echoed across calm water, mingling with the distant cries of goals.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Like that's it uh again, going back to In The Veins of the Drowning, where we talked about like the really beautiful way that she writes about like the light and stuff. That's how Amelia wrote about sound. Yeah. And I I appreciated it because I can hear it.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Yeah. We get some of the light play here too. Like first light of dawn painted the sky in hues of pink and gold, casting a soft glow over the beach. Like, oh, so pretty, so nice. Or her silver hair shimmering like molten moonlight. Molten moonlight? Love. Sell me.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

I'm sold.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Sell me to pirates.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

I don't think you want that. No, I'll just become the pirate queen.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Any other quotes here before we move to portal moments? Uh no. Okay. As you all know, we're gonna talk about the moment that pulled us in the most, where we felt the most immersed. Um, and mine was the water kraken. Oh my gosh. It wasn't made of flesh and bone, but of water itself, its massive tentacles swirling and coiling around his ship. And this is all Esmira's doing. She has conjured this kraken out of the water to take down Draven's ship, the Odyssey. And then when she called it off, it burst into nothing but violent bubbles. It took down Draven's ship with a mournful wail disappearing into the dark depths, dragging him with it. Just really epic sea battle scene, right? Like ships and krakens, and just like it's what we wanted from this season. And we really got to see the extent of Esme's power in this point. And I just is like, this is so good, and it felt big and epic and um I don't know, action-packed.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

So this was also my portal moment. No, but I had another one. Okay. So when um when they get to Marinese, but like haven't actually gotten there when they're in that what's the temple, and she touches the basin. So she's to get there, she's like touching all these runes and they're activating, and she's able to like get through these portals, right? And then she touches this rune on this basin, and she suddenly has this vision of what happened when Myrneys fell. And it is such a visceral moment that you can feel like the wind whipping around you and the water flooding the streets, and the panic of everyone like running around, and it and it gives very much. I've I've read other Atlantean type stories, or I and I've read Pompeian stories in the same vibe that that just that panic of knowing knowing there's nothing you can do, that this this is what is happening, yeah, and that's it. Yeah, and it's she just feels it so viscerally that I felt it so viscerally.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Oh, it was such a scary moment. And then in that moment, too, Draven is watching this happen to her, and it's almost like she is in this dissociative state, and he is like, What is happening? This is freaking me out! Like, where did you go?

SPEAKER_01 39:44

And then all of a sudden there's people come like they're being attacked, basically.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Yeah, uh, but she was so immersed in that memory that wasn't even really hers. Yeah, but kind of was. Yeah. So good. So good. Uh, but I think that's a wrap on this episode of Worlds Within. Before we go, though, let's give A Wraith Beneath the Tides our immersion rating on a scale of one to ten. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

So I I was gonna go with a seven out of ten because I there the sensory again, much much like other books, like the sensory was so good. Yeah, that like I was like, okay, and I really just wanted to be in a squash-buckling world, and this this delivered on that. Um, I do think that it did not need to be as long as it was. And I think there were some moments where we lost the plot, but it I think overall, like it was, it was, I mean, 10 out of 10 on vibes.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

But I think like seven. Immersion. But on immersion, I think only a seven.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Yeah, I'm close behind. I'm a six out of ten. I thought the world was good. I liked the magic systems here. I thought the gods were interesting. Um, but I did, like, I didn't really buy the romance between Esme and Dre. And I found some of it lacking some emotional depth, and I feel like uh more sometimes it's like the story felt hollow to me. And I think it would have added to my immersion had there been more emotional texture in this world.

unknown 41:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Overall, though, a fun book. Totally fun. Uh, perfect fit for our seabound season. Knocking it out of the park so far. We had Pirates and Mermaids, Family Tension, A Slow Burn Spice, and All Powerful Feminine Rage. Hell yeah. Book two, A Flame Among the Seas, just released in June, and Worlds Within will be making a field trip to Forbidden Love here in Nashville at the end of July, where Amelia J will be a visiting author.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Girl, we're coming to see you. Up next, though, we're climbing aboard the Bone Ships by RJ Parker, the first in the Tide Child trilogy. Y'all, these are ships built from dragon bones. Need I say more? I think it's gonna be super epic. But for now, drop your anchor here, but keep your compass close. Until next time, follow along on Instagram and TikTok and tell us where did you feel this story became space. Bye!

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Thanks again for joining us for another episode of Worlds Within, where story becomes space. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at World Within Pod for more episodes, sensory guides to your favorite books, and more.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast streaming platform. Bye!