Across Dark Seas

A Beneath Black Sails Standalone

By: Clare Sager

Narrated by: Amelia Hugh

A gilded cage is still a cage. Will love set her free or trap her forever?

Half-human, half-fae, and with rebellion in her blood, Lady Avice chafes against society's strict rules. Climbing trees, cursing, and running through the woods with young men are all strictly forbidden.

Eloping with a man she's fairly sure she loves must be the solution to all her problems. But her white knight quickly loses his luster when they're chased across the country by armed men and forced to flee in a pirate ship.

With the wind in her hair, sea spray on her face, and magic stirring in her veins, the pirate life might be exactly the freedom she'd been longing for. But what's freedom when her husband is still chained to tradition?

If you love adventures with magic, romance, and heroines who discover their power, you'll love this prequel to Beneath Black Sails, a pirate fantasy adventure series featuring a sizzling enemies-to-lovers romance. While this prequel book does not feature a HEA, the series does. As you might expect from pirates, these stories include mild cussing and steamy encounters.

©2020 Clare Sager (P)2025 Podium Audio

❤️‍🔥Wonderful beginning to the Sabreverse! I enjoyed the narrator!🥰

❤️‍🔥Across Dark Seas❤️‍🔥
By Clare Sager

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5 Star Review
🌶️🌶️🌶️ 3/5 Spicy Level

Across Dark Seas is book #0.5 of the Beneath Black Sails series by Clare Sager. It is 205 pages long. This is a prequel and the “origin story” of Vice. It occurs approximately 3 years prior to the beginning of book 1, Beneath Black Sails. If you read the Shadows of the Tenebris Court series first like I did, this is the story of the FMC’s (Katherine Ferrers) sister.

Lady Avice Ferrers, the FMC, is a rather wild, adventurous aristocratic 18 year old young lady. Daughter of a Viscount, she is kept at home for 18 years and has lived a dull life. It is constantly drilled into her to be obedient, dutiful and meek which are the opposite of her personality. She aspires to be an author. She loves reading books of adventure like Robin Hood and Ser Francis Drake. She knows a lady will not have a life of adventure so she decides she will gain adventures through her own writing. Her father is rather brutal with his discipline. Her mother and Nanny Alder are loving and attentive, though it’s obvious her mother is unhappily bound to her husband for life. The story hints of Avice having unnoticed fae traits at the beginning.

Ser Evered Lyons, the MMC, is a Baronet, son of Baron Lyons. He seems smitten by Avice and seems to love and accept her like she is, wild and adventurous.

When Avice is sent away from home for a visit with the Queen, she meets the eyes of Evered and it feels like love at first sight. After a few interactions, he proposes marriage and she accepts. She worries her father will need convincing due to Evered being of lower rank. After returning home she plans to ask for his blessing. However, she soon learns she has been promised to another, Lieutenant Knighton Villers, a bully from her childhood. From here, the story is about Avice’s fight for freedom and independence from social constraints and fighting for her love with Evered. There is elopement, fleeing, a pirate ship and magic. Things and people are not what they seem. She works hard to become the woman she wants to be when the world wants her to be less.

Characters who are also in Shadows of the Tenebris court include Perry, Lydia, Wolstan, Uncle Rufus, Katherine Ferrers, Sabrecats, and I’m sure there are more.

I enjoy the world building, story lines and overall writing by Clare Sager. I am working my way through all of her Sabreverse books via chronological order. Since I started with SotTC a few months ago, I wanted to read the rest in chronological order from here and will re read those when I come to them at the end.

The audiobook is narrated wonderfully by Amelia Hugh. I love audiobooks and reading along in the ebook.

Happy Reading! 📚

You Should Read This

I read the Kiss of Iron series and the author did such a great job of creating strong but soft women characters, I had to read this. I love it and pirates aren't even my thing. Can't wait for the rest.