In this fantasy/romance/horror novel, newly mermaid teenage Luce belongs to a tribe of mermaids that sink ships. After a cruise line interrupts a funeral of one of her friends, the mermaids are forced to sink the ship. Once a human hears a mermaid’s song, they must die. However, Dorian, a boy on the cruise ship, sings back to Luce, and she, breaking the mermaid’s covenant, rescues him. Newly orphaned Dorian wants to take revenge for his family and sets out to meet the mermaid that tore his world apart. When the two world’s collide it becomes more than just a simple story of revenge bringing into play the lives of all the mermaids and the traditions that they have been practicing since the dawn of the existence.

This is not a happy-go-lucky lovestruck mermaid story; it is a realistically dark tale. The characters appear to be people that one could see or meet any day. The writing is not complicated; it is easy to understand, but a haunting feeling still lingers after the last page. Readers of fantasy will enjoy this book for its depth and how it confronts every obstacle that would otherwise make the book seem superficial and not nearly as dark.

— Kit H.