The Devil and the Sea Books in Order

The Devil and the Sea is one of Feener's darker shared-universe series, and it opens with a detective story that stops being just a detective story very quickly. Between the Devil and the Sea follows Shadow Yor, an empathic investigator who is already struggling under the weight of his own mind when a murder case brings Apollo Orobas into view. Apollo is the sort of character Feener writes very well, charming on the surface, dangerous underneath, and immediately interested in whatever damage someone else is trying to hide.

That creates the series' central pressure. The crime plot matters, but so does the way Apollo starts picking at Shade's defenses. What Feener is really building here is a dark romance where investigation, violence, and emotional exposure all become tangled together. Shade cannot solve the case without moving closer to the kind of danger he is least equipped to resist.

The second book, Devil in the Details, stays in the same general world while shifting the focus to different leads. That keeps the series interesting. You get continuity of tone and universe, but not a simple repeat of book one. Feener has connected that book to her Connect characters as well, which gives this corner of the sci-fi setting its own identity.

Tone matters a lot here. These are not romances that soften quickly or ask to be read as harmless fantasy. The pull comes from the sharpness, from watching desire and control blur into each other while the outside threat keeps tightening. Readers who liked the less dark IPF books sometimes come here next and immediately see how much further Feener can push the same universe.

If you want dark MM sci-fi romance with crime elements, dangerous charisma, and characters who are bad for each other in the most readable way, this is one of her clearest entry points.