Katee Robert writing a series about queer pirates in a fantasy world... as soon as I heard this was happening I was excited, and  it didn't disappoint.
Hunt on Dark Waters is the first book in the Crimson Sails series, which mostly takes place in Threshold - a realm with portals to all other realms.
Evie is a witch with a thieving habit, who accidentally portals to the sea in Threshold while trying to escape her vampire ex-lover-not-girlfriend. She's fished out of the water by Bowen and his crew, who give her a simple choice: join the crew and hunt monsters, or be killed.
And so we have a captor/captive romance with a whole heap of forced proximity. The romance thread starts with lust woven into the hatred, and adds grudging respect over time. Because it's Katee Robert writing, the steamy scenes are obviously top notch.
For the rest of the story, we have Bowen doing a lot of soul searching on his place in the world and the rules he's been brought up with. This book does a lot of heavy lifting to set up the world and series, which does make the plot balance feel a bit off at times. But it's also made me excited for the rest of the series.
I absolutely adored the bisexual rep in this book - Evie started the book with a female lover, flirted with non-binary characters, and ended up in a relationship with a male character. Side character rep is also found in heaps.
Read this if you like steamy fantasy romance, and think that monster hunters are the real monsters.
I received a free digital ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.