Published October 12th 2021 by Hold My Beer Publishing
A MAIDEN VOYAGE…
The Pepper Kay is no stranger to the open seas, but now she has a new captain: God. His maiden voyage aboard the newly-acquired vessel will be operated by a crew greener than seaweed. With a reputation like God’s, they were all he could find.
NO MAN’S WATER…
The Pepper Kay and her greenhorn crew, captained by God and his shady deckboss Nash, voyage into the brutal unknown of the Bering Strait in search of Dungeness crab. But, when a storm rolls in and the crew hauls from the depths an impossibility, something ripped from the pages of nautical folklore, tensions mount and the crew separates into factions: good versus evil.
THOSE WHO DWELL IN DARKNESS…
Nash has plans for their newest catch, plans God is not a part of, and the deckboss will wade through blood and chum before he allows his goal to be blocked. As the crew dwindles, laid low one by one, the remaining shipmates must faceoff against not only the human evil of Nash, but something much, much older.
On board of the Pepper Kay, an unskilled crew directed by God (no, not that God) is on its way to the Bering Strait for crabbing. From God's, the captain, point of view, this is a ragtag group: Sam, "tall and rangy", Jordan, "dark of skin but bright of gaze", Charlie, a "no-nonsense woman", and Nash, "mean and unshaven", it's an odd group for sure even for God. God has three commandments for his crew. They need to do what he says, work hard, and work together.
Nash is nasty. He's an absolutely vulgar, abhorrent sack of testosterone that deserves to be castrated and then quartered by horses. He's such a piece of excrement that it's honestly difficult to read the scenes that he is in. He's exactly the kind of character that you wish the deepest, darkest corners of the earth to swallow him down and torture daily without remorse. I've read some atrocious characters before but I can honestly say Nash is by far, the most deplorable. There are no redeemable traits about him whatsoever. None. He's disgusting, perverse...there truly aren't enough words in the English language for Nash.
While the focus is on the clashing personalities aboard the Pepper Kay, we mustn't count out the danger of what they have drug up from the deep. This mermaid is ugly, superficially human, but with a mouth and teeth more like a dolphin, green tangled hair, blue skin, and the tail of something that resembles a whale. It's a tight, dreadful atmosphere aboard the Pepper Kay with the so-called mermaid in the hold. As the story progresses, the crew is stuck desolately in the middle of the ocean with danger both on board and off, we are then left to decide who the true monster is. (Hint: only one is pure evil.)
The pacing was brilliant but I found myself wanting more mayhem by mermaid. Oh, there is carnage galore, but it went way too fast and skipped to the end. I highly enjoyed the perspective of the Pepper Kay itself, with its almost all-knowing compassion and empathy. There are many triggers in the book and the authors give a list of them, so I highly recommend reading those first. Maiden is a hard story to swallow, getting stuck in your throat as you try to gulp air past the blockage.
