Reviewed by Sarina
TITLE: Deep
AUTHOR: A.L. Bates
PUBLISHER: Wayward Ink Publishing
LENGTH: 123 pages
RELEASE DATE: January 29, 2016
BLURB:
Fleeing from a troubled past that left him feeling tarnished and used, Sean finds work as a medic aboard the deep sea mining ship Ariel, on a distant planet.
Under the leadership of the infuriating, yet charismatic, Captain Joel Riley, Sean settles into his simple, but dangerous, new life. It’s a life he soon comes to love; albeit one in which he conceals his sexuality and avoids intimacy.
But Sean’s new world is turned on its head when an old face threatens to expose him for the man he used to be.
With Joel’s help, will Sean learn to come to terms with his past and become a man he can be proud of?
REVIEW:
In order to escape a life he didn’t want, Sean did what he had to and fled Earth. Three years later he’s remade himself and is living a life he enjoys and can be proud of when the past suddenly intrudes in a shocking and unwelcome way. With his new life and friends threatened, Sean does the only thing he feels he can and falls back into the behaviors he’d been so desperate to leave behind. The rest of the crew is beginning to notice that things aren’t right with the doctor they’ve come to claim as their own, however, and when the Captain gets involved, things come to a head. Now, with his world seemingly in tatters, Sean will have to make a choice: let the past continue to haunt and chase him or find the strength to stay and fight for the life and the man that he wants.
I was first drawn to this book because of the deep sea mining aspect; I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that had this in it and I found I actually liked it quite a bit. Things pick up at a decent speed in the beginning so that all of the players are present and I found I didn’t mind that at all as I was interested in seeing what direction the plot would go. Sean was a very private character and you could see just how painful it was for him to come clean about things he’d done and the man he used to be. While it wasn’t a quick fix, and he was prone to falling back into ingrained behaviors, I liked that you could see progress being made and I loved that it was the Captain that was helping him through it. I didn’t really see Joel and Sean together in the beginning because of how they reacted to one another but Joel really did care about his crew and Sean specifically. I was thrilled when he stepped up to the plate and showed what kind of man he really was.
The major drama of the book, if you want to call it that, was done well before the ending but as the rest of the story focused on Sean’s healing and his burgeoning relationship with Joel, I found I really didn’t mind at all. By the end of the book I was a total fan of these two men and even without a great deal of detail about the mining operation itself, I really enjoyed the general setting of the story too. This was a unique read that kept me entertained and I know I’ll read again in the future. I’ll also be keeping my eye out for more from this author as I’d really like to see what they come up with next. 🙂
RATING: 
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