In the Wake of the Ruined by Kalie Cassidy: Sirens, Yearning, and an Extremely Complicated Boat Situation
- genredpodcast
- 4 days ago
- 10 min read
We really liked In the Veins of the Drowning, so when it came time to finish Kalie Cassidy’s Siren Mage duology with In the Wake of the Ruined, this should have been an easy sell.
It’s a duology. There are sirens. There’s gothic romantasy. Theo is now getting his own POV and, more importantly, spending most of it yearning aggressively for Imogen.
And yet.
We have things to say.
Because while neither of us thought In the Wake of the Ruined was a bad book, this was one of those reading experiences where everything technically worked and somehow we were still asking, “Okay, but when are we getting off this boat?”
Spoiler Warning
Our discussion starts spoiler-free for In the Wake of the Ruined, but because this is the second and final book in the Siren Mage duology, there are unavoidable spoilers for In the Veins of the Drowning from the beginning.
Once the spoiler alarm sounds, all bets are off.
If you haven’t finished the duology yet, consider this your warning.
Need a refresher before Book 2?
If it’s been a minute since you read In the Veins of the Drowning, we pulled together everything you need to remember before starting In the Wake of the Ruined, including the major characters, siren lore, relationships, and where Book 1 leaves off.
What Is In the Wake of the Ruined About?
In the Wake of the Ruined picks up immediately after the events of In the Veins of the Drowning.
Imogen has claimed her ancestral crown, survived a truly unhinged amount of magic, and discovered that her connection to the ancient deity Eusia is even more dangerous than she realized.
She is also now technically the queen of two nations, which would be exciting if Imogen had even the slightest interest in ruling either of them.
She does not.
Theo, meanwhile, still has a kingdom to protect, a political marriage to complete, and extremely inconvenient feelings for Imogen that become significantly less subtle now that we finally get his POV.
War is looming. Alliances are questionable. Eusia is still collecting followers. Everyone has about six titles and at least one ancient bloodline.
And somehow, we’re spending a lot of time on a boat.
A Gothic Romantasy With Serious Siren Lore
One thing this series does really well is build a romantasy world that feels a little different from the standard dragons, fae, wolves, repeat.
The siren mythology is dark and moody. There are mages, sea witches, prophecies, ancient gods, blood magic, and creatures that we previously described as essentially siren zombies.
It feels like a dark fairy tale more than a traditional fantasy romance.
The problem for us this time was that the mythology had gotten so dense that coming back into the world after roughly a year away required some work.
There are a lot of names.
There are a lot of family connections.
There are centuries of lore.
And most of those names are absolutely not names we are going to confidently pronounce into a microphone.
If you read the duology back-to-back, we actually think the experience might be much smoother. There’s enough history here that having Book One fresh in your mind would probably make the conclusion much more satisfying.
Theo Gets a POV and the Yearning Gets Out of Control
One of the biggest changes from the first book is that In the Wake of the Ruined gives us Theo’s POV.
And thank God.
Because Theo is down catastrophically bad for Imogen.
The slow burn from Book One is over. We have moved into full-time yearning.
Theo wants Imogen.
Imogen wants Theo.
Theo has duties.
Imogen has duties.
Everyone is nobly sacrificing things for their respective kingdoms.
Except there is one small complication.
Theo gets married.
Not to Imogen.
The Political Marriage That Nobody Seems Particularly Concerned About
Theo follows through with his political marriage to Halla, although calling it a marriage feels generous.
They don’t complete the binding ceremony that would make it fully official by the standards of this world. Theo makes it very clear that he is not emotionally interested in her.
Halla makes it very clear that what she actually wants is Theo’s child.
And Theo essentially agrees while internally thinking, “Absolutely not.”
Normal political marriage stuff.
The stranger part is that Theo and Imogen continue their relationship with almost no guilt, secrecy, or concern from anybody around them.
The guards know.
Halla knows Theo doesn’t love her.
Theo and Imogen are fooling around while staying in Halla’s mother’s castle.
At no point does anyone appear particularly scandalized.
Apparently extramarital siren sex is just another Tuesday.
The Trope Report
There is a LOT happening here:
Yearning
Dual POV
Political marriage
Prophecies
Forbidden-ish romance
Gods and godlike rulers
Siren magic
Blood magic
Ancient cults
Almost-sex interrupted repeatedly
Extremely complicated family trees
An amount of boat travel we personally found memorable
There is almost a quest.
Thankfully, everyone gets back on the boat.
It’s Giving...
Our comparisons went in two very different directions this week.
For Elyse, the first book had shades of the original Hans Christian Andersen The Little Mermaid, dark, unsettling, and decidedly not Disney.
This book felt closer to the Disney version, especially once we reached the ending.
Except instead of the mermaid giving everything up for the prince, the prince basically says, “Actually, I’ll give up everything for you.”
More on that later.
Katy went somewhere else entirely.
House of Dragons.
Everyone is sort of related.
Marriage appears to be more of a suggestion.
Nobody seems particularly concerned about sleeping with someone who is not their spouse.
There are approximately 900 years of family history.
And we stopped following the genealogy several names ago.
Honestly? Both work.
⚠️SPOILERS AHEAD⚠️
Sound the alarm.
Eusia Is Basically Running a Cult
Eusia becomes much more interesting in this book once we realize she is less evil sea goddess and more supernatural cult leader.
She barely does any of her own dirty work.
She manipulates followers.
She inspires wars.
She convinces people to sacrifice themselves.
She sends devotees out to accomplish whatever she needs done.
And she stays in her weird pool absorbing power from other people.
Which brought us to a comparison we were not expecting to make during a romantasy review:
Charles Manson.
Not because the stories are remotely the same, obviously, but because Eusia operates through followers who do horrible things on her behalf while she remains at the center of everything.
Visually, we had two competing interpretations.
Elyse pictured a crumpled Baby Voldemort situation floating around in murky water.
Katy pictured something closer to the girl from The Ring covered in black, oily seawater.
Neither is particularly appealing.
Eusia's Master Plan Is... A Baby?
Then comes the reveal that made us stop.
After centuries of manipulation, blood sacrifice, political maneuvering, cult behavior, and assorted magical atrocities, what Eusia ultimately needs is basically a baby with god blood.
She needs a powerful source she can feed from.
That’s it.
The big plan is baby food.
Nemea had a child with Imogen’s mother because she had godlike blood.
Halla’s mother attempted the same thing but ended up having Halla with Nemea instead.
Now Halla wants Theo’s baby because Theo possesses the god blood Eusia needs.
Which also leads to the revelation that Halla and Imogen are connected through their parentage in a way nobody seems particularly emotionally affected by.
The ancient magical conspiracy has become extremely family-tree dependent.
Halla and Imogen Find Out They’re Related and Basically Shrug
This should probably be a larger emotional revelation.
It is not.
There is no major sister-bonding moment.
No dramatic reconciliation.
Nobody moves into matching bedrooms.
They mostly absorb the information and continue trying to stop an evil deity from eating powerful babies.
Fair enough.
They have other priorities.
The Final Battle Is Cool, But We Needed the Explanation Afterwards
The climax involves simultaneous magical confrontations happening above and below the throne room.
Theo, Lachlan, Agatha, and Halla’s mother are upstairs.
Imogen, Halla, Aleka, and Eusia are downstairs.
Two spells happen almost simultaneously.
For a moment, it appears Halla killed Eusia.
But the actual sequence is more complicated.
Agatha kills Eusia.
Halla kills her own mother.
Imogen severs her bond.
Everything lines up at exactly the right moment.
It works.
It’s dramatic.
It is also confusing enough that the chapter immediately before the epilogue deserves an employee-of-the-month award for explaining what just happened.
Aleka’s Betrayal
Another major reveal is that Aleka, one of Theo’s trusted advisers, is secretly devoted to Eusia.
We weren’t completely shocked, but it adds another layer to just how deeply Eusia's influence runs.
It also introduces one of the more memorable visual details in the book.
Eusia's followers apparently wear flesh-colored dresses with red detailing designed to resemble the wound that nearly split Eusia in half.
Very symbolic.
Very cult.
Slightly vaginal once someone points it out.
And unfortunately, once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
We Need to Discuss the Boat
We were on this boat for so long.
People kept boarding.
People kept finding additional rooms.
There was a wedding.
There were staterooms.
There were enough guests for a major political event.
People were climbing through windows.
Imogen was constantly waking up unconscious somewhere new.
At multiple points, we genuinely forgot we were still on a boat and mentally converted the setting into a castle.
How large is this ship?
Where is everybody sleeping?
Why are none of the doors locking?
We have questions.
No one has answers.
The boat remains one of the great architectural mysteries of the Siren Mage universe.
Imogen Is Unconscious Surprisingly Often
Speaking of the boat, another recurring experience for Imogen is waking up after being knocked unconscious, magically incapacitated, injured, kidnapped, or otherwise removed from active participation.
Our girl takes a lot of naps she did not schedule.
Which would be stressful enough without also being a queen, siren, mage, chosen one, and apparently everyone’s preferred source of magical blood.
The Romance Finally Pays Off
For all of our questions, the relationship between Theo and Imogen does ultimately land somewhere satisfying.
Theo spends most of this book yearning.
And yearning.
And yearning some more.
They repeatedly almost sleep together and get interrupted.
Then, naturally, the one time they manage to pull it off is while staying in the castle belonging to Theo’s new wife’s mother.
Everyone is nearby.
Nobody appears concerned.
Sure.
But the actual emotional payoff comes later.
The Epilogue Saves the Ending
The epilogue was easily one of our favorite parts of the book.
A year later, Imogen has finally built the life she actually wanted. She isn’t ruling a kingdom. She isn’t performing ceremonial duties. She isn’t sacrificing herself for everyone around her.
She lives in the old Mage Seer cottage and uses her immense power to help people without demanding the gruesome payment the previous Mage Seers required.
She gets peace.
She gets purpose.
She gets to stay herself.
And Theo?
Theo ends the monarchy.
He gives up the throne.
He returns to Imogen and becomes a healer.
This is what made the ending work for us.
Fantasy romances constantly ask women to sacrifice power, family, identity, immortality, or responsibility in order to get their happily ever after.
Imogen gives up nothing.
Theo does.
Happily.
That is an ending we can get behind.
So... Did We Like In the Wake of the Ruined?
Kind of?
This was one of those books where neither of us had a major complaint. We don’t think it’s badly written. We don’t think the romantasy is badly constructed. The gothic siren world is still interesting. Theo’s POV was a good addition. The ending is satisfying.
And we LOVE that Cassidy actually committed to making this a duology instead of stretching one story across five increasingly confusing books.
But the book never fully grabbed either of us.
Katy especially went into it feeling burnt out on romantasy, and unfortunately, changing the supernatural creature from wolves to sirens did not cure the problem.
Elyse had a similar reaction.
Nothing made her want to stop reading. Nothing made her desperate to keep reading either.
It wasn’t boring. But somehow, we were bored.
And sometimes that is simply the reading experience.
Our Final Rating
Katy: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This might have been more about timing than the book itself. She wasn’t particularly interested in returning to a dense romantasy world right now and struggled to remember the lore after a year away.
Still, she liked the duology format and thought the ending wrapped everything up well.
Elyse: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Also a three.
She found the book objectively solid and would still recommend it to readers looking for something different within romantasy, particularly anyone interested in gothic sirens and darker mythology.
It simply didn’t hit for her personally.
Who Should Read In the Wake of the Ruined?
Try this duology if you like:
Gothic romantasy
Sirens and sea magic
Dark fairy-tale vibes
Heavy fantasy lore
Dual POV romance
Serious yearning
Political marriages
Ancient gods behaving badly
Blood magic
Duologies with an actual ending
Heroes who are willing to give up the crown
And ideally?
Read the books relatively close together.
Trust us.
Fast Facts
Book: In the Wake of the Ruined
Author: Kalie Cassidy
Series: Siren Mage Duology, Book 2
Genre: Gothic Romantasy / Fantasy Romance
POV: Dual POV
Genre’d Rating: 3 stars from both hosts
Vibes: Sirens, blood magic, political marriages, ancient cults, yearning, boats
Best for: Readers who want darker romantasy outside the usual fae and dragon rotation
What We’re Reading Next
Next up: Last Night Was Killer by Mary Pauline Lowry.
A single mom discovers a dead body in her trunk and has to figure out how exactly that happened.
It was recommended to us by author Jordana Webber after we loved How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates, so we’re hoping for another funny murder mystery with a deeply inconvenient corpse.
Exactly the palate cleanser our romantasy-fatigued brains need.
Join the Conversation
Did In the Wake of the Ruined work better for you than it did for us?
Were you completely invested in the siren lore?
Did you understand the family tree?
And most importantly, how big was that boat?
Tell us on Instagram or TikTok @genredpodcast.
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Mini FAQ
Is In the Wake of the Ruined a sequel?
Yes. In the Wake of the Ruined is the second and final book in Kalie Cassidy’s Siren Mage duology and continues directly after In the Veins of the Drowning.
Do you need to read In the Veins of the Drowning first?
Absolutely. The sequel immediately continues the first book’s story and relies heavily on its characters, mythology, political relationships, and magical lore.
Is In the Wake of the Ruined a romantasy?
Yes. It combines fantasy world-building, siren mythology, magic, political conflict, and a central romance between Imogen and Theo.
Is In the Wake of the Ruined dual POV?
Yes. Unlike the first book, the sequel includes Theo’s point of view alongside Imogen’s.
What tropes are in In the Wake of the Ruined?
Major tropes and themes include yearning, political marriage, chosen one, prophecies, forbidden romance, dual POV, magical bloodlines, ancient gods, and sacrifice.
Is the Siren Mage series complete?
Yes. The series is a completed duology, so you can read both books without waiting for another installment.
What did Genre’d rate In the Wake of the Ruined?
Both Katy and Elyse gave In the Wake of the Ruined 3 stars. Neither thought it was a bad book, but the story didn’t fully grab them this time around.
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