From the Depths

by Harpie Alexander, Octavia Kore, Dani Morrison

The depths conceal and harbor that which it takes into its abode. Anything could lurk beneath the surface, waiting for their moment to make their claim.

Six authors have come together to share tales of romance and wonder in watery abodes with heroes of most peculiar species. The love that awaits may just be beyond imagining.

Join Harpie Alexander, Octavia Kore, Dani Morrison, S.J. Sanders, Diana Rose Wilson and Charity Wells for six tales of love from the depths.

Genres: Romance, Short Stories, Anthologies, Paranormal, Science Fiction, Adult, Science Fiction Romance

367 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 27, 2020

About the author

Born in raised in Canada, Harpie Alexander has always had a passion for books. She'd often escape reality to read fantastic new worlds, characters and stories about adventure and love. Now, years later, she spends her time creating these stories herself for others to enjoy.

Harpie specializes in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Paranormal romance with Aliens, Monsters and other Beings, sometimes combining the genres to create thrilling new worlds for you to experience.

Harpie Alexander also publishes under Harpie Alexa.

Reviews

[Marzipop · Rating 2 out of 5]

So some stories were alright, some were definitely not my thing and I skipped because they grossed me out, one made me hopeful and then super sad :(

The one that I was hopeful about features an asexual (at first) intersex (at first) love interest. And then we have an MC whose pressuring the poor dude for sex when he really does not want it. Then it's magically fixed just so the MC can have sex. It says multiple times in there that sex /= love but man. :( I was so hopeful for accepting somebody as they are but no lmao. Had to be 'fixed' so that they could have a normal regular relationship. Go figure lol

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another anthology to rate! I will rate each story individually and average for the collection.



01: Drashar Aquatic Aliens of Sa'thulia by Harpie Alexander

Raschelle—an average bartender from a space ship—and Drashar—a solitary and lonely purple and green jellyfish-esque male— come together when Raschelle is attacked by another creature from his planet and he's compelled to save and nurse her back to health rather than eat her. But...inadvertently traps her in an underwater cavern. They come together over the course of several days, maybe a little over a week? Time was hard to gauge in this story because...underwater cavern with no daylight cues to count on. Then it skips ahead a couple of months to show them in a comfortable and amicable relationship/routine. This story looks like it will be expanded with another offering, but what was here is sweet and cute, despite how potentially lethal Drashar and his feeding arms are. It was enjoyable, but pretty standard SFR formulaic romance.

3 stars. Not a bad start.

02: Ecstasy From The Deep-A Verona Mate Novelette-by Octavia Kore

Oh, dear. Where to even begin with this mess?

✏︎ So many typos and massive formatting issues* with this story that were mostly missing from the others. This is a first offering from this writing pair, so I understand they're still learning the ropes, but it's super distracting to be reading a story and mid-way through a sentence the next word shows up a line lower and indented like a new paragraph. It happened so many times in here.

*It was brought to my attention the the formatting issues were not the fault of the authors but the formatter for the collection. There is one formatting error I caught in another story, but they all congregated in this one.

✏︎ Every character in this story makes no sense at all. We have a TSTL hero with a TSTL heroine and...it just wasn't enjoyable to read. Why does everyone want to feed me idiot sandwiches? Someone has to be somewhat sensible for these tales to work. Then he has a moronic bro who is mostly MIA except when conveniently most needed, and she has a hyper-aggressive bff who is a nurse of all things? I don't know. Nothing in these two pairings and dynamics worked for me. There's a lot of forced, "but oh, we mustn't!" going on in here that dragged out what could have been a much shorter story. My favorite character was the rapey Grutex in the beginning—described as a dragonfruit/Xenomorph hybrid—who at least had a good OTT Alpha talking game going. It was a shame he died so quickly.

This whole story feels like a first attempt at mimicking standard 150 page SFR fare. Which it was. I will definitely check back in with this writing pair after they have a few more stories under their belts and see how they develop.

2 stars: it didn't kill me to read, but I risked rolling my eyes out.

03: Opportunity's Chase-by Dani Morrison

This was one of my favorite stories in the anthology, because it deviates so far from the standard SFR formula and tone that it was engaging to read. It was refreshing and unexpected. I will be revisiting it in the future to see what else I can absorb from further readings, since I'm sure I missed some clues in my first reading. If you need everything spelled out from the beginning, this story will be hard to follow. You have to pay attention to it and piece things together, which is tricky, given what we learn about Dyriixian nature later in the story. You can't always trust dialogue.

This is the story of Natlea—an "augmented" human being—and Yael the Swift—an aquatic alien species called the Dyriixian, and man of mystery. We get dumped right into the middle of the action, one year into Yael's aggressive multi-planet pursuit of Natlea, his unsuspecting fiancee who keeps running despite being seriously attracted to him. It turns out that Natlea decided to skip all of the cultural seminars about their host planet and agreed to honor all of the customs she didn't bother to learn. WHOOPS? When the charming Yael gifts her with a tiny pearl, she has no idea that by accepting it she agrees to bond with him and goes on the run, shaming her human employers and screwing herself out her job in the process. Once Yael finally catches her and she stops running, they consummate the bonding. And that's when things get more confusing for her as she finally sees the full picture of what's going on and figures out who Yael really is.

This tale ends as abruptly as it begins, and we're left to speculate what will happen to the pair with a big event looming in front of them, but they both seem happy with the arrangement now that they're on the same page.

4.5 stars. Thank you for something completely different than I was expecting.

04: Sirei in Exile-A New Sirenx Romance -by SJ Sanders

Let's face it, most of us came here because we knew SJ wrote a story and wanted to see what it was all about. I was expecting her to be the star of the collection but was surprised to find she was upper mid-pack this time. (Which I think says a lot about the caliper of the collection and is not meant as a dig on her.)

This is a dystopian SFR story, but less horror and more sweet like SJ's Mate Index series. It follows the Sirei—a species who lost their homeward to a cataclysmic event 6 generations ago—and the new, much more water filled Earth—after a cataclysmic event has all but done away with larger land masses—that most of humanity is struggling to adapt to living on.

After 6 generations traveling space looking for a new homeward, the Sirei are dying out and no longer care if they exhaust their resources. Only 30% are mated, those matches are having difficulty breeding young, and they're all suffering from depression. At the very last minute for one of the pods—the one commanded by Ji'wa, a very reluctant captain—a suitable planet has been found. With no time to do further analysis, they set off the chain of events that will get the Sirei established in their new water-rich home. They know there are sentient beings on the larger land masses, but what will they find on the rocky islands that are necessary for their own survival?

Terra escaped the dangers of the floating city and has her own little island paradise. If only it would be kinder and stop trying to kill her. She's scraping by, but at least she's free. Survival is hard if you're on your own, and it's even worse for a woman due to size and strength disadvantages. If only the deeper water weren't full of massive nightmare creatures, she could bulk up her food stores and expend more energy on improving other parts of her life. Terra spends most of her time we're able to see trying to find food then fighting to eat said food. One day as she's shucking oysters, a fireball crashes into the waters not far from her home, sending a tsunami her way. After things calm and she goes out to explore, she sees something intriguing in the water and things play out from there.

I would love to see species art for the Sirei, since my mind kept thinking of some sort of a sea dragon with the tail and flaming billowing fins.

My biggest complaints about this story are due to the limited length. I think this would have been better as a full length book, and I hope that someday it will be expanded upon, because I really enjoyed what we were given here. But the conflict and resolution are really rushed compared to the pacing for the rest of the story, and the conflict came rather out of the blue.

4 stars, would read more of this series.

05: Under The Lake-by Diana Rose Wilson

This was my other favorite story in the collection, likely because it too strayed from the expected SFR formula and tone and did something interesting with the space allotted to it.

This story reminds me a bit of Peggy Barnett's Lips Like Ice for reasons we'll get to in a minute.

We are introduced to the main characters after a violent conflict with parties unknown, and Darcy is trying to piece together what happened. She's heart broken and trying to work through exactly why that was and trying to understand why she was attacked by some men who were looking for her odd duck cousin who left her his house and property about a month ago. Some of the sedatives used while healing her up have left her memory fragmented. Things quickly become clear and we meet our other main character.

Wharkuz. Now, Wharkuz and his species are interesting. They start off as non-gendered/non-sexed "neutrals" and mature into male, female, or dual-aspect adults. But something went wrong with Wharkuz's maturation—his body never produced the hormones necessary to complete his transition— and while he is male gendered, he's non-sexed and viewed as a child despite being an of-age adult. He has the anatomy of a Ken doll.



OUCH.

And while Whar can feel affection, attachment, and a more innocent love, he lacks the hormones and drive for sexual desire. Which causes a huge problem for him and Darcy. While Darcy is of the pansexual persuasion and is painfully into Whar on all levels, he's unable to reciprocate in a sexual manner and it causes a lot of contention between them. Darcy wants to find where exactly the line is and get as much as she can from her relationship with Whar, and he's uncomfortable with things veering into territory that's not intended for him—but he's unwilling to stop seeing Darcy either, as he loves her dearly too. After she kisses him, they both fall seriously ill, and things get a lot more interesting from there.

Fans self. It gets really, really hot after Whar wakes up and a little light is shed on why he was ill.

✏︎ Minor niggle: Darcy is a veterinarian but doesn't know the difference between a virus and bacteria. She also should know that colds do not involve fevers, but keeps insisting her ailment is a cold anyway. It drove me absolutely batty. We never find out what she was infected with or if it was even important, but given that the commander she talks to specifically asked how she was feeling and hinted it was significant, it must have been.

I would have loved more of this story and newly matured Whar is hot as hell. OMG. I was not expecting that given how mild mannered he was before the hormones came in. I love how delighted he was to finally be able to act on those more innocent feelings.

4.5 stars. I want more of this, thank you.

06: Waves of Desire -by Charity Wells

Sigh. Another bland formulaic SFR. We have to instantly smitten and rather adorable main character who has a tail, fins, and golden eyes. We have the TSTL heroine who seems way too young to be doing her job and is grossly inept at it and keeps almost dying in the process of simple tasks. He stalks her, viewing it as romantic gestures. She denies her attraction for the sake of it despite the fact that there's literally no one to judge her for it. She has no personality except mood swings to be cranky about stupid small things. Rando rapey asshole shows up and... sea monsters. Yeah, that's about it. Was definitely underwhelmed by this one. It was entertaining but nothing special.

3 stars. Any more idiot sandwiches and I'm going to be sick.

Overall collection rating: 3.5 stars, rounded up.

I enjoyed the diversity in this collection and wish there had been a bit more, but it's overall a solid set of reads.

[Dayzee · Rating 5 out of 5]

🌊 Water Aliens are the best! 🌊

Drashar Aquatic of Aliens of Sa’thulia by Harpie Alexander
- All the feels! strangers to friends to something much more! This amazing curious sea creature saves this human and now they are both trap in a cave with no way out. They learn so much together. 💙 Adorable! one of my faves!
Ecstasy from the Deep: A Venora mate Novelette by Octavia Core
- Alien saves woman, woman has major kick ass friend who trys to prevent any attack or attachment for the alien but nothing could of stop this romance even if she tried! cute!
Opportunity’s Chace by Dani Morrison
- The whole time this pull back and forth from our leads was a little challenging. They both were fighting the pull.. hate /love. In the end im not sure who won. 😅It ended in a semi cliffhanger.
Sirei in Exile: A new sirenx romance by S.J. Sanders
-on the verge of extinction an alien finds his mate. Wonderful story of survival and taking chances💙👌
Under the Lake by Diana Rose Wilson
-OMG this was my top fave! sexy time 😈 from friends to lovers. But here is the twist: this alien creature doesn’t have male or feminine private body parts.Its like a barbie alien Ken...you can see the dilemma but never less they both fall hard! i loved how it blossoms with the heartfelt scenes. Then something extraordinarily happens! Must read!!! yumm yumm! definitely hoooot!!! 🔥
- Waves of Desire by Charity Wells
Super cute! Kano the main lead is freaking adorable! i love how genuine honest he is and how he courts his woman! i was surprise it was pack with action!! This water Si-fi romance anthology was amazing! Read it with my kindle unlimited 💙😘

[Brutally Honest]

Okay, here comes a long review. In my opinion the subject matter of these stories can't be covered in an anthology-style story, which is what crippled a lot of these. So I'll try to be forgiving when it comes to lack of detail or rushed plots. All of these stories should have been full-length novels to give them the proper attention. Also, I have not read any of these authors before other than my #2 favourite SJ Sanders.

Story 1: Drashar Aquatic Aliens of Sa'Thulia - Harpie Alexander | rating: 2 stars

Basic synopsis: Space ship crashes on aquatic world. Heroine is immediately attacked by a giant sea creature on arrival, separated from her fellow humans, saved by Drashar - a jellyfish type creature.

This story started off well. I was intrigued by the world building. But then it quickly goes downhill from there. If I understood the flow of the story, Drashar and Raschelle bump uglies literally 24 hours after she wakes up from basically being delirious. She's never seen an alien before in her life, but has no problem hooking up with a dude that literally looks like a jelly fish from the waist down. Drashar is cute in a way, there's some angst about being alone forever and whatever, but that's quickly shoved away when she decides to play house with this guy right from the get-go. I understand her being trapped in the caves, but I don't like how any issues like "he's an alien!!" were just never explored. And worst of all, the story ends on a cliffhanger, so I guess if you want to read the full thing you'll have to go somewhere else. That's not the freaking point of an anthology, seriously!

Story 2: Ecstasy from the Deep - Octavia Kore | rating: 1 star

Basic synopsis: Race of aliens is evaluating Earth to decide if they want to try to help humanity fight off another alien race. One of the warriors, Oshen, and his friend, go down to Earth against orders and are stranded. Marine biologist heroine Amanda finds him and nurses him back to health.

UGH. That is literally all I can say about this one. The story falls into all the major pitfalls of alien romance. Oshen spends the entire book being introduced to ANNOYING AS FUCK Earth customs and foods. It's like watching a reaction video. "Alien tries cheerios, see what he does next!!1!1!1" How about fucking no. Everyone else also acts completely irrationally so that's fun too. Yeah, I'll just keep this alien chained to my bed... that makes complete sense!

Story 3: Opportunity's Chase - Dani Morrison | rating: 1 star

Basic synopsis: Natlea and her betrothed Yael (yes, I also can't unsee that that is a human girl's name...) play a mating game - a chase, but jacked up beyond any you've read about before.

I was starting to get really despondent about this book after reading this story. The main issue? Uhm, Natlea is..... I don't know what the heck she actually is???? An augment??? I mean, what part of her is augmented, why, how, with what??? The last chapter shed some light on it, but the first chapter was so freaking confusing I read it 3 times. Then there's the mating game they're involved in. From the blurb, it sounded like they were going to enter said mating game later in the story. NOPE. They're full into the mating game when the book starts. AND IT'S NOT CLEAR. I freaking HATED Yael at first, cus I didn't understand they were just.... weird pervs... and thought he was totally sexually harassing her. And I've read some interesting forced submission stories without blinking. At least those are clear from the get-go what you're getting into! And then, after the midway point in this story, and they bump uglies, things just.... completely flip. Suddenly, Yael and Natlea are happily living together in his quarters and doing pirate-y things together and ... none of it is described, that's what we're TOLD is happening. So good luck with this story. I hated it.

Story 4: Sirei in Exile - SJ Sanders (aka the story we're all here for) | rating: 4.5 stars

Brief synopsis: The Sirei are a species escaping their planet. This is generation 6 on board of the ship, running out of basic necessities and on the verge of dying out, until they come across a post-apocalyptic Earth.

Okay this world building and premise were brilliant, as usual. I absolutely love how this author immediately manages to set the scene so efficiently and effectively. A big juxtaposition to the previous story! Within a few pages I understood Ji'Wa and his people. There was no confusion. I also understood Terra, and the new situation on Earth, although to a slightly lesser degree. And even though my always curious mind would have loved to learn more, for this short story that was irrelevant. The romance between these two was adorable and it was handled very realistically, so yeah all in all this was great. The reason I'm not rating this 5 stars is because I never rate short stories that high, and secondly, the beginning felt a bit forced - there was a lot of info crammed into the first few pages.

Story 5: Under the Lake - Diana Rose Wilson | rating: 4 stars

Brief synopsis: Darcy inherits a house from her eccentric cousin, and with it some strange neighbours - aliens in an underwater lab in the lake. Wharkuz is the only scientist remaining in the lab after all his colleagues have mated with humans. She befriends him, falls in love with his mind, starts wanting more, but Wharkuz hasn't yet matured from his "neutral" state (non gendered body basically). But what happens when they both catch a cold...

Okay LOL I loved this story. First of all, the whole non-gendered body and pre-pubescent part was so intriguing. I loved their relationship, it was so wholesome. And then the whole change thing being triggered by a cold? That was nicely done. I didn't really like the beginning too much, I felt that the memory loss thing was a bit forced. Also, I have the feeling this is part of a series, because I needed more world building, without having read any of the other books. I also didn't especially like the ending. Wharkuz changes to his testosterone-filled manly self, but I feel like it changed his personality too much. Compare this story to Tyree's story by Alana Khan. I guess I need to remember this was only a short story and not a full novel, lol, but it would have been nice to see Wharkuz deal with being suddenly much taller at least.

Story 6: Waves of Desire - Charity Wells | rating: 3 stars

Brief synopsis: Betsy is assigned to a weather station on a tiny island on an untouched planet, as she has always dreamed of. She soon realises that even though the planet is thought to be lacking intelligent life, she's not alone. The presents left in front of her house are thoughtfully arranged and send the message that she is being watched all the time.

This is a fun read. I thought it was really funny to read about the presents being left, and how Betsy started realising what was going on... I liked how devoted Kano was, and the angst of him thinking he was being rejected and the whole process was fun. What I didn't like however, was that Betsy has been sent out here to do a job, and the grand total of twice we see her do said job, she needs to be rescued. It was almost embarrassing. What I also didn't like was the over-the-top scary creatures on this supposed peaceful world. I can understand the scientists or whatever missing a couple thousand intelligent creatures hiding in the depths. I can't understand them missing the giant crabs that are apparently prevalent and very violent. I also didn't like how Kano, who has lived mostly underwater his entire life, almost gets caught by the crabs at the end. And Betsy's TSTL moment where she started going into the ocean while he was being attacked. The ending was also not too great, leaving it on a cliffhanger. Do they get to be together? Only the author knows!

My rating scheme: 1 star - I hated this. 2 stars - I didn't like this. 3 stars - I liked this. 4 stars - I really liked this. 5 stars - omg this is the best book ever I will reread this.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This alien sci-fi romance anthology contained entertaining stories, some from new-to-me authors. I enjoyed all but two of these romances and will be keeping an eye out for new releases for two authors that were new to me. The story by S. J. Sanders was excellent, like almost all the romances I have read by her. The worlds built by these different authors were fascinating and the different aquatic aliens were also fascinating. The characterization and development of the romantic relationship between the protagonists was excellent in all but two of the stories. I recommend this anthology to any reader who likes sci-fi alien romance novels.

[C Stackhouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read!

This was a great read. I enjoyed all six stories. I had my favorites but overall I enjoyed everyone's story. You won't be disappointed.

[RI L · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Each story had a creative creature that automatically interested me. I can't wait for full lengths of these stories! The short stories were such teasers! There were some I loved way more than others, but everyone has their own tastes.

[erik howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collection of Alien and Human Romances !

I liked the selection of stories about the water planet. Each story is different and unique . Did to adult sexual content they are for adults only . I liked some stories and others I loved . I wish they were longer . Each alien was different . Some were jellyfish like or had four arms. Some were from the ocean and one from a lake . I hope you enjoy the collection !

[freddie · Rating 2 out of 5]

CAWPILE rating: 2.7/10
STAR rating: ★★

The quality of each short story varies - most of them were just meh, others were quite bad.
I think I also need to give up on standalone short stories/anthologies bc I don't seem to gel with the format; like my fiction a little longer and better-developed.

[❤️Tutubi❤️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

SJ Sanders ❤️

[Nike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review is only for S. J. Sanders book

[Crissyjostarrlite Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really hate cliffhangers

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love all of sj sanders books, all of them are brilliant!!!!

[J A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did I just read a Filipino bad word on the 2nd story?