Guest Review: Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown

Title: Lies Beneath
Author: Anne Greenwood Brown
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Release Date: June 12, 2012 
ISBN-10: 0385742010
ISBN-13: 978-0385742016
Authors Website
Source: NetGalley/Publisher

Calder White lives in the cold, clear waters of Lake Superior, the only brother in a family of murderous mermaids. To survive, Calder and his sisters prey on humans, killing them to absorb their energy. But this summer the underwater clan targets Jason Hancock out of pure revenge. They blame Hancock for their mother's death and have been waiting a long time for him to return to his family's homestead on the lake. Hancock has a fear of water, so to lure him in, Calder sets out to seduce Hancock's daughter, Lily. Easy enough—especially as Calder has lots of practice using his irresistable good looks and charm on ususpecting girls. Only this time Calder screws everything up: he falls for Lily—just as Lily starts to suspect that there's more to the monsters-in-the-lake legends than she ever imagined. And just as his sisters are losing patience with him. (Goodreads)

Review

This was my first mermaid book, other than the Little Mermaid in my daughter's bedtime book, and I really enjoyed it. These are not your Disney mermaid...mer-people at all. Calder White spends as much time as possible in the warm waters of the tropical ocean away from his sisters, who are all mentally linked at all times when they are close to each other, sounds like fun right? Calder was human, but fell from a boat as a toddler and was resuscitated by his mer-mother. He doesn't really remember his parents or life as a human, but lately he is wanting more freedom from his mer-family and resisting killing, which has weaken him. It's understandable, not only because he was human, but they kill when humans are at their happiest to gain more positive energy, being rather a depressed species themselves. The love story is good, but what I liked most of was the way the story unfolded the mystery slowly. There were some things you saw coming, like his relationship to one of his sisters, but other things like the real reason for his mother's death were not as obvious. I didn't realize it was the first in a series when I got it off NetGalley, but it would stand up well as a single novel. However, I will be reading the second in the series, because I am hoping to find out the rest of Calder's history and find out exactly what Lily is...

Lies Beneath was good, go read it.

Happy Endings,

Kelly

Awesome! Reread worthy.

Recommended For

YA, Adult:  Pretty clean read, I don't remember any profanity and there is mild making out, nothing really serious...yet : )