Water's Break
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
What if fear itself is the deadliest undercurrent of all?
Nica would do anything to avoid the hassles of her sister's bonding ceremony—the wrap fittings, hairstyles, and braided fire coral—but she never imagined that the waters covering her planet would be broken. As the heavens rained fire and stone, mountains erupted from the sea and dry ground was birthed on the Deep, dividing the water—and the Olomi people—for the first time in their history.
In the wake of her world's violent re-formation, Nica's family is shattered. When the rookie Guardian leaves the safety of the Deep to find her sister, she is abducted by strange landwalkers who possess strength and technology beyond her imagination. Nica realizes that the disaster from above was by their design—a calculated plan to terraform the water planet and conquer her people. All Nica wants to do is find her sister and swim home to safety, but with the landwalkers closing in, escape may not be possible. And if Nica can't save herself, how can she hope to save her sister—or her people?
Customer Reviews
A heartbreaking and heartwarming story of resilient water people under oppression
Waters Break is a challenging tale of an aquan people whose home and lives are torn apart by invaders who come to transform the Olomi people’s planet for their own survival needs.
The main characters live in an underwater world, not mermaids, but a unique type of sentient being the reader quickly comes to empathize with as the Delphim soon exert cruelty over the natives they take captive. We follow Nica’s story, “TAL-eta” in captivity, and watch in horror along with her as she grapples with not only her captors’ cruelty, but the cruelty of her own people who have turned against their Olomi brethren to side with the invaders.
I appreciate the new type of water creature Sophia Hansen created. Of special note is their language, how they sense and communicate underwater, and their special bodily features, present throughout the book. All of these needfully change in captivity, and endear the reader’s heart to the Olomi plight.
Reading-wise, at the start of chapters I struggled to follow what was happening because I wasn’t sure of the setting and time frame in relation to the previous chapters. Several times I felt like the story was floating in the air until it finally landed a few pages later in a place and time. Except for in the beginning, when the story is fully underwater and when Nica purposely maps out areas, I had only a rudimentary idea of what places, buildings, and grounds looked like and wanted to “see” them and character movement better. The vast array of different names in two languages also presented a challenge to keep straight.
Sometimes I felt distanced from the story and characters by the writing, but the struggle of the Olomi people to bear up under such oppression and seek freedom told a story and struggle as old as time worth reading.
Waters Break, through nonhuman characters, reveals both the depths of human depravity and human love, shows readers the value of community, and that it’s never too late to turn back and remember who you really are or want to be. For these things, this story is invaluable, so while some issues exist that could’ve been remedied with closer publisher edits, the positive message rises above the book’s troubled waters to 4 stars. Because water always makes a way.
I hope to read more from this author featuring these characters and their world.