mermaids Archives - Night Owl Reads

Seaweed by Elle Strauss

If you’re looking for a cute-sy mermaid story, you may just like Elle Strauss’ Seaweed. It left me smiling and daydreaming about being a mermaid. Since I was still not over merfolk novels, I read the Kindle copy of Seaweed that I picked up back when it was still free. It was recommended by Karen Hooper, the author responsible for my new found love for merfolk. If you’re not a fan on insta-love, this book isn’t for you. Tor and Dori were attracted to each other even before they spoke with each other. This was quite an entertaining read, I would find myself smiling from time to time because of the parts that I find funny. Like the opening part, when Tor and Dori first hung out and the latter playfully threw water on Tor’s face and he ran away, I couldn’t help but laugh because it was funny in my head. Then there was the date on the boat, there was a part that was so funny too. Another thing I liked is that Dori is a swimmer. I used to train competitively during high school and reading about Dori’s swim meets brings back memories from my own swimming days. The plot was okay, there were parts that felt off but it still worked in the end. The science behind the fins-to-legs transformation was realistic, in my opinion. Of course it would hurt to have your fins separate into a pair of legs, amiright? Seaweed is listed as a stand-alone but the ending felt like a cliffhanger, there were still questions left unanswered, and though the whole story was just okay, I still want to know what happens after that ending.

Legacy Lost (The Syrena Legacy #0.5) by Anna Banks

If you read my review of Of Poseidon, you’ll know that I loved the story. Legacy Lost tells the story of Grom and Nalia’s relationship. Their love story was mentioned in Of Poseidon but in this short story, we learn what happened to them through Grom’s point of view. I really liked it. Like Of Poseidon, I think it’s a cute story and I love young Grom and Nalia as much as I love Galen and Emma. It has a sad ending though, but the story doesn’t end there. I seriously can’t wait for the next book in this series. Of Triton is expected to be published on 2013. IT’S TOO LONG. I CAN’T WAIT!

Of Poseidon (The Syrena Legacy #1) by Anna Banks

Still feeling the mermaid love, I read Of Poseidon by Anna Banks. I’ve read many good reviews about this book and people have been raving about it. I’m glad that I read this next because I love the story despite its predictability. First of all, it was a pretty cute beginning but something tragic happens that made me tear up. But all that sadness went away when I got to know Galen. Ohmysweetgoodness! Galen is so adorable. Every thing he does, I find adorable. I wish he was real and I know him because I want to pinch his cheeks for being to damn adorable. Every character is also likable/lovable, even Rayna, Galen’s twin, who seems to be the mean girl type. But for 20-year-old twins, they seem immature, especially Rayna. I still love all the characters presented in this novel, even Emma’s mom who makes funny remarks. I like that one chapter is on Emma’s first-person POV while the other is a narrative on Galen’s POV and would include Rayna and Toraf too. The plot is predictable but still good nonetheless. Each page turn makes me giddy with excitement and I would find myself smiling while reading. The description is correct, it really is a fish-out-of-water story that sparkles with intrigue, humor, and waves of romance. There’s no major threat, like villains, so far. The story focuses on Galen and Emma’s attraction to each other and Grom’s need to mate first before Galen. There’s definitely a bigger picture than the love interest, like who Grom’s mate should be and the safety of the Syrena’s. I feel that there’s going to be trouble there which would probably surface in the next book. Then there’s the revelation at the end of this novel which I guessed from the first quarter or half of the story. I already knew what it was but it feels good to be right, right? I am so excited to find out how this revelation would play out and how it affects my beloved Galen and Emma. The Gift of Poseidon is very useful IMO, you can talk to all sea creatures. If I had that ability, I could get a job as a dolphin/seal/penguin/etc trainer. Hahaha! I wonder what the Gift of Triton is, since no one remembers or actually knows what it is, will we find out what that gift is in Bank’s next novel, Of Triton? I am so excited. I’d say it’s a pretty simple mermaid love story. I gave this novel a rating of 4 out of 5 because I really, really liked it. It’s a very promising start for debut author Anna Banks.

Tangled Tides (The Sea Monster Memoirs #1) by Karen Amanda Hooper

For someone who likes watching mermaid films and once dreamed of being a mermaid, I never once had interest in reading mermaid novels. I don’t know why that is, but in my quest to be the wide reader my mom claimed me to be, I asked Karen Amanda Hooper for a digital copy Tangled Tides in exchange for an honest review. That said, I would like to thank her for introducing me to the wonderful world of merfolk, selkies, and other mythical creatures mentioned in the book. The cover is pretty as mermaids go. It reminds me of that scene in the Little Mermaid where Ariel flipped her hair when she got out of the water as human. Anyway… I had a bit of a problem with reading the ebook. Each chapter was told in the POV of either Yara, Treygan, or Rownan. While reading, the indicator would say, for example, Yara, but the continuing paragraphs are still on the previous person’s POV. I guess it was messed up from the conversion from PDF to epub. Fortunately, I had common sense and used it while reading. It took me quite a while to finish reading this because of various reasons. I wanted to finish it in a day but life keeps getting in the way. I’d say it was a rough start, it was slow paced and took a lot of pages to get to the point. But as soon as some secrets were revealed, it got interesting. I became curious about merfolk and selkies, and even sirens. Yara was annoying. Wait, no. She’s stubborn. I sometimes feel like she acts like a spoiled brat, which I guess makes her annoying at times. If she wants something, she wants it done right away. Treygan on the other hand, is a very patient merman, or is he just patient with Yara? He’s also carrying a lot of burden within himself. Yara doesn’t like him at first because she felt like he was responsible for what happened to her. I liked the constant bickering with between the two though. At some level I think it’s cute, I found myself smiling silly while reading those parts. I don’t know how I feel about Rownan, he’s not that bad but he isn’t good either. He has his reasons for doing the things he did, and I think it’s understandable given the circumstances. And at some point he was concerned with Yara’s well-being. The other characters are likable, in my opinion, except for the other selkies like Jack. The cross-breeding between monsters felt like a stretch, I was confused for a while, found myself stopping to recall who was half what and what it meant in relation with the whole story. The C-weed and seagarette bit were witty in my opinion, but it felt ridiculous too. I mean, the purpose of those were understandable but the manner of usage, smoked like weed and tobacco was silly. There were even parts where a lighter was mentioned and a C-weed was smoked Read more