Blurb:
On Joel’s birthday, he watched his lover Charlie drown while saving Joel’s life. Since then, no other man has been able to match the erotic chemistry the two of them once shared.

But a year later Joel is shocked to discover Charlie alive and well, looking as mysterious and attractive as ever. However, Charlie is different. He has new, arcane superpowers. He doesn’t seem to remember Joel at all.

And he murders people with his bare hands.

Suddenly Joel finds himself on the run from both his lover, and a frightening group of dangerous individuals who can wield the elements at will, and who are determined to kill him to keep their secret safe. But the smoldering looks Charlie gives Joel reminds him of their former, heated passion, and even with Charlie’s new homicidal tendencies, they discover their bodies remember what their minds may have forgotten…

Bottom line up front:
Weird, but interesting. This seems like the start of a series that I should have waited to read in the entirety. Somehow, I think I'd enjoy the books more that way.

The rest:
Joel is a professor who usually teaches military history at a local university. He calls in sick on his birthday to go for a nice romantic day on the ocean with his boyfriend, Charlie. It turns into the worst birthday ever when a storm comes out of nowhere and capsizes the boat. This opening salvo of the story confused me some. They both notice that what started out as a perfectly clear day has become oddly stormy, and that the waves are getting high enough to splash up the sides of the boat. Still, Charlie is giving Joel an inspired blowjob, and Joel isn't interested in having that cut short for the sake of a few waves.

Ok, I can understand that, but there's a huge storm outside. Twenty foot high waves are definitely enough to make their small boat rock significantly, so I'm having a hard time visualizing anyone able to keep dangly bits in their mouth without accidentally biting them when the boat has to be rocking violently.

But the highly talented Charlie doesn't stop until the mast snaps in half and the boat finally tips over. The two make it out of the capsized boat and onto the upturned keel. Somehow, Joel is rescued by a helicopter, but Charlie's body was never found. Worst birthday ever, and he didn't even get to orgasm.

A year later, Joel goes to a random bar far away from anyone who would recognize him to drown his birthday sorrows in a few whiskey sours. He is understandably shocked to look over to the bar and see a guy who looks exactly like Charlie sitting there with a group of friends. Charlie doesn't seem to recognize Joel, but Joel isn't ready to give up. He follows Charlie and his friends when they leave the bar and end up at some club place where he's definitely the odd man out. Joel's consternation turns into shock when he watches Charlie drown a woman.

When Joel tries to stop Charlie, he finds himself the target of a bunch of water element type beings who are actively trying to kill him. Charlie shows up at Joel's secret hiding spot and explains that he was never really human, but a water elemental known as the Valde. There was a battle long before humans roamed the earth, and Air and Earth elementals teamed up to entrap Fire and Water elementals in human bodies. They come to full awareness of their powers when they die in the manner of their element..water has to be drowned, fire burned to death, etc. Neat trick, considering that humans weren't in existence at that point.

Charlie shrugged. “I don’t know. There wasn’t life on the planet when we had our first great battle. The other battles we’ve had over the years have only been between Fire and Water, and we have been restricted by our human bodies.”

To explain why he drowned the woman:

“Mar recognized Sergeant Kal, another Water, in the body of that woman several days ago,” Charlie said. “That’s why we drowned her, Joel. We didn’t kill her. We woke Kal up.”
“How do you know she’s on your side?”
“She was one of the first Retributors who allied in 1732

That part I didn't get much. The person who started the whole Retributor movement only gets the rank of Sergeant? That's pretty darn low on the totem pole, even for the enlisted side. The least the rest of the gang could have done is given Kal, who apparently has more initiative then the rest of her peers, an officer position. Even Charlie was a Lieutenant.

Joel is crushed when he learns that Charlie has a Valde lover who just hasn't been awoken in this lifetime yet, a guy by the name of General Dev. Despite this, the two can't keep their hands to themselves, even though their relationship is unacceptable to the Valde and isn't helping Charlie any with Mar, the de facto leader until Dev shows up. It doesn't take Scooby Doo and the gang to solve the mystery of who Dev is, but it didn't take away from the book any. Dev is a fire elemental. The Valde in their human bodies are vulnerable and the bodies can be killed, at which point they're reincarnated into the body of some screaming baby somewhere to try again. So a jealous Water Valde who recognizes an unawakened Fire Valde spirit can drown him so he doesn't awaken in this lifetime.

I liked the writing here, and the premise of the story in The Valde: Water is an interesting one to explore. This book was slightly above average with the strong possibility of future books getting much better as the series develops. I'm not sure there will be more, but it does sound like it was left open, so the option exists.