The Bends
She’s the one thing her brother forbade him to touch, but to save her from the surface, he’ll risk everything in the deep.
Axel "Breach" Hammer is the DSS Leviathan’s youngest, most promising saturation diver. He owes everything to his superintendent, Daxton Harland—the man who pulled him out of the gutter and gave him a purpose. Axel has lived his life by a strict code of loyalty, but his resolve is tested when Dax issues a single, impossible order: protect his sister Clara, but do not touch her.
Clara Harland is a brilliant marine biologist fleeing a predatory ex-boyfriend and a stolen career. She seeks refuge 100 miles offshore on her brother’s ship, never expecting to find a kindred soul behind the glass of a pressurized habitat. Separated by three inches of reinforced acrylic and 400 feet of ocean pressure, Axel and Clara build a forbidden intimacy through scribbled notes and crackling comms, while a corporate conspiracy closes in on the biological discovery she’s made on the seafloor.
When her stalker boards the ship and sabotages the crew’s life support, Axel is trapped in the crushing dark. To save the woman he loves, he must make the ultimate sacrifice: an emergency rapid ascent. Ignoring the nitrogen bubbling in his blood and the agonizing pain of the bends, Axel will breach the surface to stand between Clara and the monster hunting her, proving that some promises are worth dying for.
The Blurb
Axel "Breach" Hammer is the DSS Leviathan’s youngest, most promising saturation diver. He owes everything to his superintendent, Daxton Harland—the man who pulled him out of the gutter and gave him a purpose. Axel has lived his life by a strict code of loyalty, but his resolve is tested when Dax issues a single, impossible order: protect his sister Clara, but do not touch her.
Clara Harland is a brilliant marine biologist fleeing a predatory ex-boyfriend and a stolen career. She seeks refuge 100 miles offshore on her brother’s ship, never expecting to find a kindred soul behind the glass of a pressurized habitat. Separated by three inches of reinforced acrylic and 400 feet of ocean pressure, Axel and Clara build a forbidden intimacy through scribbled notes and crackling comms, while a corporate conspiracy closes in on the biological discovery she’s made on the seafloor.
When her stalker boards the ship and sabotages the crew’s life support, Axel is trapped in the crushing dark. To save the woman he loves, he must make the ultimate sacrifice: an emergency rapid ascent. Ignoring the nitrogen bubbling in his blood and the agonizing pain of the bends, Axel will breach the surface to stand between Clara and the monster hunting her, proving that some promises are worth dying for.
"The tension between Axel and Clara behind that glass wall was absolutely suffocating in the best way! I've never read a romance that used the physical environment so effectively to build angst. The moment Axel chose to risk the bends to save her had me on the edge of my seat."— Elena R.