Kingdom of Waves Review | Colonialism, Lost Magic & a Brutal Cliffhanger

Kingdom of Waves took a little while to hook me—but once it did, I literally didn’t want to put it down. From its powerful imagery of colonialism and cultural erasure to ancestral magic, compelling characters, and one hell of a cliffhanger, Melissa de la Cruz left me desperate for book two.

Okay, Kingdom of Waves by Melissa de la Cruz got me.

I’ll admit that it took me a little while to get fully invested. I’ve been dealing with some serious reader fatigue lately, so I don’t even necessarily blame the book for that. But once Kingdom of Waves finally hooked me?

I could not put it down.

And I mean that literally.

I got to work about three hours early, as I usually do, and when it was time for me to clock in, I still had about twenty pages left.

So I sat there and kept reading.

My coworkers were basically like, “Are you seriously going to finish the book?”

Yes. Yes, I am.

I clocked in maybe five or ten minutes late because there was absolutely no way I was putting that book down with twenty pages left.

And then I reached the ending.

Melissa.

What the hell was that cliffhanger?!

I need book two immediately.

A Kingdom That Has Been Erased

One of the strongest elements of Kingdom of Waves for me was the way the story explores colonialism through fantasy.

The people of Ophir have been conquered. Their history has been rewritten by their invaders. Their culture and magic have been suppressed, distorted, and erased.

Characters like Eban and Gin don’t even have access to the full truth of their own history.

Their kingdom sank beneath the waves, almost like Atlantis, and there is a prophecy that one day their kingdom will rise again.

And while we’re reading fantasy, so maybe there’s a literal interpretation hiding somewhere in there, I kept coming back to the symbolism of that prophecy.

What if the kingdom rising isn’t simply about land physically emerging from the ocean?

What if it’s about the people rising again?

Reclaiming their history.

Reclaiming their magic.

Reclaiming their culture and identity after generations of being told that the history written by their conquerors is the truth.

That was the element of the novel that resonated most strongly with me.

Colonialism, Identity & Reclaiming History

The colonialism imagery isn’t exactly subtle, but I don’t think it needs to be.

Colonization doesn’t only conquer land. It can erase languages, traditions, religions, stories, and cultural identities while replacing them with a version of history written by those in power.

And Kingdom of Waves incorporates that idea directly into its fantasy.

The people descended from Ophir carry markings on their wrists connecting them magically to their ancestors. They can undergo a trial and potentially inherit a magical ability associated with the noble house—and the god—to which their family was connected.

I loved this.

It made the magic feel intrinsically connected to the novel’s larger themes. Their magic isn’t simply a cool fantasy ability. It’s tied to their ancestry and to a history that other people have attempted to rewrite or erase.

So reclaiming magic becomes another way of reclaiming identity.

That made the worldbuilding so much more interesting to me.

The Magic System Had Me Hooked

I’m always looking for fantasy that gives me something different to latch onto, and I really liked how Melissa de la Cruz structured the magic here.

The markings, the ancestral connections, the different houses, the gods, and the trials all work together to make the magic feel like an actual part of the culture rather than something pasted onto the story.

And that’s what I want from fantasy worldbuilding.

Don’t just tell me someone has magic.

Tell me why it matters.

Tell me where it came from.

Tell me how a culture understands it.

Tell me what happens when another culture attempts to erase that history.

That’s where Kingdom of Waves became particularly compelling for me.

Melissa de la Cruz Is So Easy to Read

This is now the second Melissa de la Cruz book I’ve read recently after Sibylline, and both books reminded me why I’ve enjoyed her work over the years.

There is an ease to her writing.

Her storytelling is fluid, and she’s very good at creating characters I become invested in without bogging the story down.

Once I pushed through my initial reader fatigue, I was sucked in.

The tension continued building, the story kept moving, and suddenly I had been sitting there reading for two and a half hours and refusing to clock into work because I had twenty pages left.

Thankfully, it wasn’t busy.

But if that’s not evidence that I was invested, I don’t know what is.

I Needed More From the Romance

My biggest criticism is the developing romance between Eban and Gin.

I could see Gin’s feelings.

His yearning is there. His jealousy is there. You can tell his feelings toward Eban are becoming increasingly romantic.

With Eban?

I needed more.

There are little moments throughout the book that, looking back, I can recognize as potential hints that her feelings are changing. But while I was actually reading them, they felt much more platonic to me.

Even Eban seems uncertain about whether she and Gin are really friends.

Then we get toward the end, the stakes skyrocket, and suddenly her romantic feelings become much more apparent.

And I wasn’t completely sold on the transition.

If You’re Giving Me Romance, Make Me Believe It

I’m not a huge romance reader, so I absolutely did not need the relationship to become the center of Kingdom of Waves.

In fact, please don’t make it the center.

Give me my fantasy plot.

But if you’re putting a romance into the story, I need enough development to make that romance feel believable.

I understood Gin’s attraction to Eban. I just wanted a little more from her perspective before those final high-stakes moments.

There is an argument to be made that it fits her characterization. These are thieves. Trust isn’t exactly something either character gives away freely, and Yvonne has her own history making emotional vulnerability difficult.

So I can understand why she might suppress or fail to recognize those feelings.

I just wanted a few more breadcrumbs.

THAT Plot Twist

Now let’s talk about something Melissa de la Cruz did really well:

The ending.

Without spoiling anything, I knew something was wrong.

The foreshadowing was there.

I knew there was something happening with a particular character, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.

Then the reveal happened.

Oh.

OH.

I did not see that coming.

That’s the kind of twist I love because the book gives you enough information to know something isn’t right without handing you the answer.

Afterward, you can look back at the clues and realize:

It was right there.

That’s satisfying storytelling.

Final Thoughts

Kingdom of Waves was such a good read.

It took me a little while to get into it, but I’m putting most of that on my own reader fatigue because once this story grabbed me, it really grabbed me.

The imagery surrounding colonialism and cultural erasure was easily one of my favorite aspects of the novel. I loved how the magic connects these characters to their ancestors and how the prophecy surrounding the lost kingdom can be interpreted as something much larger than a literal kingdom rising from beneath the waves.

The tension was excellent.

The characterization kept me invested.

The magic and worldbuilding gave the story its own identity.

The final twist got me.

My only real complaint was wanting more development from Yvonne’s side of the romance so that the shift from something that felt largely platonic to something explicitly romantic landed a little more naturally.

But that ending?

I need book two.

You cannot leave me with a cliffhanger like that and expect me to be patient.

Melissa, please.

Book two. Now. Please and thank you.