Overall: 3.5 rounded to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔 (I did feel like I knew the heroine better but I felt like I hardly knew anything about the hero)
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Humor: Not really (it’s kind of a dark book dealing with depression)
Perspective: First person from only the heroine
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? slower
When mains are first on page together: It takes awhile – they talk online quite soon in, but aren’t on page together until about 20% or so (the end of chapter 6)
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: Not really – the last chapter jumps just a bit in time and gives a bit of a wrap up though
Format: read e-book version on kindle unlimited

Should I read in order?
This is a stand alone novel (I believe).

Basic plot:
Jules is finally tempted to leave her apartment to try to find the mysterious Mack after exchanging pictures with him on a fish forum.

Give this a try if you want:
- contemporary monster romance
- fishman hero / human heroine
- copywriter heroine (former model)
- heroine has agoraphobia
- size difference (hero is ‘much taller’ than her)
- rooftop dates
- slower burn
- forbidden love
- medium steam – 4 full scenes but one is at the very end

Ages:
- heroine is late 20s

First line:
I wake with a gasp, hand to neck, back to headboard, body bent to the darkness.

My thoughts:
I really loved a lot about this book, starting with the COVER! It is what called to me and called to me and I couldn’t stop thinking about this book until I broke down and read it.

But I did have some unanswered questions and issues with this story too.

I loved the idea of this one. My heart broke for Jules and her abusive family experience and her withdrawing into herself so far that she becomes agoraphobic. I adored Mack. He was a wonderful hero and more gentle and caring than I was expecting. And I loved the steamy scenes. I loved the slower burn and build up of their feelings. I enjoyed parts of this book immensely.

But I was sad we only got heroine POV. I love my hero POV! But I won’t hold that against the author – but what did end up really bothering me was that I was still left knowing hardly anything about the hero. How did this start/happen? I wanted more details about his family. About his job. We didn’t get a lot of details about him.

There were a lot of really incredible coincidences in this novel. It was coincidence enough that they lived in the same town so that they could visit each other. I could get behind that though, very subtle fated mates feels. But then the fact that they also (view spoiler).

I was left having so many unanswered questions. I needed more details about the how and why. I did like the idea of the ending but I wanted more details in the final chapter as well.

This novel does have a bit of a darker feel to it. There’s a lot of villain-ish figures as well as self destruction and self harm thoughts that I think you have to be ready for. Heartbreaking and memorable but my complain is this novel just didn’t feel complete to me.

I liked the writing and picked up alllll Wynn’s other novels to try though! (They are contemporary rom/com-ish I believe, not monster) I read Holiday Games awhile ago and truly loved it.

Cock/Hero Stats:

- iridescent blue eyes, high forehead and fins (including one on his chin), and ears (with fan like frills around his ears)
- has legs, hands and feet – slightly webbed, sides have fins running down the length and he’s covered in pearly scales
- no fingernails
- pale blue tongue
- no eyelashes
- human dick mostly...pink and red hues with something along the top ridge of the shaft
- he has an ‘extra appendage’ within his chin gills – not as big as a dick, a little wider and more rigid, but short that he uses in her while continuing oral
- taste of it is cooler, smoother (and mild, clean and a touch salty)

Quotes/spoiler-y thoughts:Any mistakes/typos are my own

I let my hands travel down the length of his back to grasp at his taut, muscled hips, but he growls softly into my mouth. Then, one by one, he pulls my hands off him and holds them over my head.
“Stay put,” he commands.
---
“Just...let me...let me touch it. Suck it. Just one little suck. One tiny little suck.” So I can really know what’s going on with you. So I can have you inside me once and for all.
His eyes darken again. And this time, they really darken, not just in the sense that it looks like he wants to eat me. Now, it’s more murderous. The whites of his eyes turn dark gray, the blue part going almost completely black.
My pulse pounds through my body. My knees ache on the ground.
I don’t care.
At first, I think he might pounce on me. Push me to my knees in front of him and put me to work.
The degree to which I want him to do that startles me.
---
But his eyes are on me. And mine on him.
“Look at me,” he commands, his voice gruff when my gaze wanders to his hand. “Look at me while I do this. Because I’m doing this for you. Because of you.”
---
“Be a good girl for me and come.”
The sight of his hard cock encased in his large hand hits me hard, as does the first wave of my orgasm.
“Come hard,” he commands.
---
The irises of his eyes are almost completely black. Shark.
“I’m feeling a little….” He pulls on his collar. “Different…”
“Different how?” I ask, my mouth gone dry.
“Like I wanna do things to you. Lots of things. Lots of different things.”
I bite my lip and nod my head. “Uh-huh….”
Anticipation nips at my skin, scaling up and down the sensitive nerves beneath. And yet, I don’t make a move. I’ve been making most of the moves.
It’s his turn.
“Like if I don’t touch you right now, I’ll die. Like if anyone else touched you, I’d kill them.”
---
“Hold onto the ledge,” he says as he sinks below inch by inch, roughly throwing each of my thighs over either of his shoulders.
He dips below the surface, but his head is between my legs.
 

Content warnings: These should be taken as a minimum of what to expect. It’s very possible I have missed some.

- there’s a creepy cop neighbor that harasses the heroine and wears his gun while lounging around
- scenes of mental health struggles, being afraid to leave the house, not bathing and doing laundry
- scenes of panic and anxiety
- mention of parental abandonment
- there’s something here I just want to note – I actually loved this part but it just popped out at me and I wanted to mention – there’s a scene early in the book where the coffee shop guy comes to check on Jules because he hasn’t seen her in a while and she’s quite shaken and rattled (her agoraphobia kicking in) but then when she goes to Mack’s house for the first time, he’s obviously freaking out because she found out where he lived when they had no idea they were in even in the same state, and then she demands he lets her in, and even finds a spare key and lets herself in even though he is saying no. I didn’t mind the part, but I couldn’t help thinking if it was reversed…
- sexual assault remembered
- suicidal thoughts/actions including attempting death on page
- scenes of drug/alcohol usage
- violence, stalking, gun shots/wounds, attacking in self defense

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

Safe sex: 

  No (?) 

Hows the consent? 

  The steamy scenes are good. There are some questionable scenes of the heroine finding and going into the hero's house uninvited 

28% - heroine self pleasure but it’s pretty short
41% - kiss
43% - 🔥 kisses, dry humping on the couch (no one o’s), mutual masturbation
61% - 🔥 breast play, oral in the pool with her legs over his shoulders
74% - 🔥 bj (complete)

“Shit, you did it. You took the whole thing. Fuck, you’re such a good girl.”

97% - 🔥 him behind her in the water