slc333's review against another edition
2.0
Marketed as Stephanie Plum meets Splash I was expecting a funny light hearted romp with quirky characters, amusing situations and traditional mermaids. I did not get that. It lacked the element of ridiculous and quirky characters that make the Stephanie Plum novels so entertaining and aside from the use of the word mermaid to describe Ros & the Aegira folks there was NOTHING of Splash about it. The mermaids do not have tails, they can go between land and water with no difficulty or survival issues. There was no star crossed mermaid/human romance.
It is not necessarily a bad story just wrongly marketed which led to my having expectations that were just not fulfilled. I also hated the insta-love between Ros and Carragheen. It was ridiculous and unbelievable. It is bad enough in YA books but at least teenagers are prone to that sort of instant obsession. In a supposedly cynical, intelligent, 29 yr old woman who is also a police officer the stupidity of it detracted from my ability to enter into the rest of the story. I also hated how Carragheen and Ros's mother kept refusing to tell Ros anything for no good reason. She is a cop trying to solve a murder and disappearance yet no-one bothers to give her relevant information - and she lets them get away with it.
It is not necessarily a bad story just wrongly marketed which led to my having expectations that were just not fulfilled. I also hated the insta-love between Ros and Carragheen. It was ridiculous and unbelievable. It is bad enough in YA books but at least teenagers are prone to that sort of instant obsession. In a supposedly cynical, intelligent, 29 yr old woman who is also a police officer the stupidity of it detracted from my ability to enter into the rest of the story. I also hated how Carragheen and Ros's mother kept refusing to tell Ros anything for no good reason. She is a cop trying to solve a murder and disappearance yet no-one bothers to give her relevant information - and she lets them get away with it.
thiefofcamorr's review against another edition
3.0
Katharine is a judge for the Aurealis Awards. This review is the personal opinion of Katharine herself, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging coordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team.
clockworkbee's review
2.0
I kept getting the feeling that this was the second book in a series. I looked it up and was surprised to read that it is actually the first book in a series. I just felt like the author left out a lot of backstory. Who is this little kid that keeps calling the main character? Why did she leave New York, and how did she become a cop there in the first place? How did she get her scar? That combined with the "Instalove" made it hard for me to enjoy this book. I'm not sure I'll read the second in the series.
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