So here's the thing — everyone's out here calling this book a monster romance like it's some niche curiosity, and meanwhile I'm sitting on my bathroom floor at 1 AM with mascara tracks down my face because a kraken just learned what loneliness means. Diego jumped off the counter when I gasped. Frida didn't even flinch. She's seen worse from me.
I picked this one up because I'd been in a reading slump — three DNFs in a row, all contemporary romances that felt like they were assembled from a kit. Girl meets boy at coffee shop, banter banter banter, third-act miscommunication, done. Eleven on Top was actually the last one I finished before hitting that wall — fun, exactly what it promises, but at a certain point I needed a story that wanted to do something more to me than make me smile. I needed something that would make me feel unmoored. A book about a woman literally lost at sea and a kraken who collects treasures from shipwrecks? Yeah, that'll do it.
A Kraken Who Hoards Beautiful Things and Doesn't Know He's Lonely
Jax is the kind of love interest that wrecks you because he doesn't understand his own feelings. He's a wanderer — the oddball kraken who can't stay near his den, who explores the ocean collecting objects he finds fascinating. And then he finds Macy. And she becomes the ultimate object in his collection. Which is — yes, uncomfortable. The possessiveness is real. He literally won't let her leave. But Tiffany Roberts (who's actually a husband-wife duo, which honestly makes the dual perspective hit different) does something smart: they let you sit in Macy's fear. They don't rush past it. You feel her terror of the ocean, her claustrophobia of being trapped underwater, her fury at being treated like a shiny trinket. And you also feel Jax slowly realizing that wanting to keep something isn't the same as loving it.
The moment that broke me — and I mean full ugly-cry, had to pause the audio and just breathe — is when Jax starts rearranging his treasure den to make it more comfortable for Macy. Not because she asked. Because he noticed she was cold. He doesn't even have a framework for "caring about someone else's comfort" and he's doing it anyway. My heart. MY HEART.
Abuela would have loved this one. She lived for those telenovela moments where the brooding man does one small tender thing and you just know. She would've clutched her rosary at the spicier scenes though — and there are some — but she would've kept watching. She always did.
The Narration Is Fine and That's the Problem
Okay, I have to be honest here because I know some people loved Hollie Jackson and Ryan Turner together, and I respect that. But I listen at 1.0x. I savor every breath, every pause, every vocal shift. And at that speed, you notice things. The dual narration is structured chapter-by-chapter — Hollie handles Macy's POV, Ryan handles Jax's. Which sounds great on paper. But they're trading off chapters, not voicing characters within scenes. So when Jax speaks during Macy's chapters, it's Hollie doing Jax's voice. And when Macy speaks during Jax's chapters, it's Ryan doing Macy.
It creates this weird disconnect where the characters sound different depending on whose chapter you're in. Compare that to someone like Julia Whelan, who could voice a kraken AND a terrified woman AND make you forget there's only one person talking — and you feel the gap. The delivery is clean, the pacing is steady, the production is crisp. But there's a flatness in the emotional peaks that frustrated me. When Macy screams at Jax that she's not his treasure, I wanted to hear her voice crack. I wanted rage. What I got was competent.
It didn't ruin the experience. But for a book that lives and dies on emotional intensity, the narration kept me at arm's length when I wanted to be drowning.
Who's Going to Fall Hard for This
If you're a fantasy romance listener who wants something outside the fae-and-court formula, this is your book. If you loved Ice Planet Barbarians but wished it went deeper emotionally — this. If the idea of a non-human hero learning tenderness makes your chest ache, absolutely yes. The worldbuilding is genuinely imaginative — the underwater environments, the kraken society, the way Jax perceives the world through different senses than humans. It's a 10-hour listen and it earns most of those hours.
But if you need your narrators to deliver on the big emotional moments — if flat delivery pulls you out of a scene — maybe read the ebook and cast the voices yourself. I almost wish I had.
The Book That Made Me Cry Underwater (Metaphorically)
This book felt like being pulled beneath the surface and discovering you can breathe down there. The story is gorgeous and strange and tender in ways I didn't expect from the premise. The narration kept it from being a five-star experience, but the writing? The emotional core of a creature learning that love isn't possession? That got me. Entry number 12 on my crying spreadsheet this year, and we're only in the first quarter. Unhinged behavior? Maybe. But Jax would understand — he's a collector too.
