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A quick rundown of this product’s key features:
Wilder Girls meets Outer Banks where a group of scuba diving friends stumbles across lost treasure, a legendary cave, and a new type of power… that comes at a price.
The deeper you go, the darker you fall.
Phoebe “Phibs” Ray is never more at home than when she’s underwater. On a dive six months ago, she and her four closest friends discovered a handful of ancient gold coins, rocketing them into social media fame. Now, their final summer together after high school, they’re taking one last trip to a distant Australian island to do what they love most – scuba dive.
While diving a local reef, Phibs discovers a spectacular underwater sea cave, rumored to be a lost cave with a buried treasure. But when Phibs and her best friend Gabe surface from the cave, they notice that they’re undergoing strange changes. Oozing gashes that don’t heal. Haunting whispers in their heads… Something has latched onto them, lurking beneath their skin, transforming them from the inside out.
When treasure hunters arrive, desperate to find the location of the cave and hold Phibs’ group for ransom, she’ll do anything to keep her friends safe. In the process she learns that, of all the dreadful creatures of the sea, she might be the most terrifying of them all.
Our Top Reviews
Reviewer: Ali Kamen
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Buy this book!
Review: To sum up my review in one sentence – I could not put down this book! Rachel Reiss is an incredible writer! I got instantly drawn in with her descriptive writing and couldn’t stop reading! It’s exciting, suspenseful, scary at times and just a beautiful read. Rachel’s descriptive writing helped me truly visualize what the divers were seeing. I brought this book on vacation and finished it in one day. It made me not want to go into the ocean though! Highly recommend this book! It’s incredible!
Reviewer: Kate Lyn Broom
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Beautifully scary
Review: ★★★★”… there’s a hint of a possibility that maybe one day I’ll never be out of air again.”Out of Air features a group of friends bonded over the love of scuba diving who’ve reached an inflection point in their relationship. Everyone is poised to go their separate ways after graduation, and so they decide to take one last vacation to dive together. Throughout the trip, their impulses and secrets put them in situations that result in strange changes in them.Horror novels are not typically something I reach for, so I am SO glad I had the opportunity to read this one! This book was legit scary y’all and I did NOT want to put it down once I started. The tension between Phibs and Gabe, the layers to the friendships within the group, the body horror (my favorite kind of horror), and the stakes hooked me early on and kept me on board.Rachel Reiss makes these characters feel real. Her descriptions of diving, while perhaps indulgent, are riveting and lush, and seem well informed by her background in diving. Her choice in employing an unreliable narrator and starting the story after fissures have formed in friend group helped the pace and immersive experience of reading this book. I also loved the romantic subplot, tinged as it was with the melodrama of 18 year old trying to find their place in the world.I wish the book had been a little longer, and we’d spent more time with the changes some of the characters experienced, and more time with the characters in general. And while we got some closure about Phib’s mom, I will admit I was expecting a little more. Highly recommend this to folks who like their horror scary but not too scary, love reading about the ocean in detail, and are interested in found family themes.
Reviewer: Alana
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: YA Horror Sadly Missed the Mark
Review: I’ve come to realize how much of a fan I am of ocean horror, which is why I was so excited to pick this up! Unfortunately, it did not scratch the itch I needed it to and left me feeling very “meh” about it.The biggest qualm I had is that this is not even remotely close to horror, it’s paranormal thriller at best. Speaking of paranormal- there is no rhyme or reason given to the bizarre events taking place, only halfhearted attempts at justification by the MMC’s. This also frustrated me because as a standalone it left at a completely undesirable and incomplete ending.I will say that the pace of the book is pretty fast and I found myself not feeling bogged down with filler chapters. I did enjoy how the plot examined both past and present timelines to help readers see a fuller picture. This is YA so be warned there is no spice!
Reviewer: elizabeth
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Fun Summer Read!
Review: What a fun summer read! Fast paced and tension-filled, I tore through this. I love books where the setting feels like a character, and this book had that in a major way. I felt like I was in the ocean and under the waves, diving right along with the characters! Loved it!
Reviewer: Alyssa Haigood Brutlag
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Great Debut!
Review: Boy did this book have me on the edge of my seat! Phoebe “Phibs” Ray lives on an island in Key West where she befriends a local group of divers and they form “The Salt Squad”. With their newly famed media attention from finding some ancient gold coins, they get the chance to go diving on an island off of Australia. Here, they find an underwater cave and the drama commences. I won’t go too deep into detail or I’ll spoil the fun. :)I was drawn to reading this book because of the “Wilder Girls” meets “Outer Banks” reference. I definitely see the connection to these two books/shows and would even throw in a VERY MINOR hint of “The Thirteenth Year” original movie from Disney Channel. This book is classified as YA, but as a woman in my 30s, I found that I really enjoyed it. I have dived in the great barrier reef myself and was really able to relate to the high you get from while underwater. I found myself googling lots of sea life creatures as the book has a wonderful descriptive narrative.The book is a single POV, has a hint of romance, danger, and lots of treasure hunting fun. Because these characters have just graduated high school, you definitely get a sense of Phibs trying to figure out where she belongs. The ocean calls to her and she feels like most of her family has left her and that her friends will eventually leave her too.Overall, I thought this book was fun and a change of pace from what I normally read. The ending was well rounded and answered a few of the lingering questions I had. The cover is BEAUTIFUL and I felt like it accurately shows what was described in the book. I would say this book was a success for the debut author, Rachel Reiss.
Reviewer: Alan Rich
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Great Story
Review: I purchased the book for the diving story and found the book engaging and was cheering the characters as they solved the mystery all buried like a treasure in a live story. WellDone!
Price effective as of Jul 01, 2025 01:51:00 UTC
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