Book Review- Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown

Title: Lies Beneath

 Author: Anne Greenwood Brown

Series:   Lies Beneath #1

Published:  12 June 2012 by Random House

Length: 303 pages

Warnings: Violence, killer mermaids, a little romance, 12+

Source: netgalley

Other info: Book 2, Deep Betrayal, will be released March 2013

Summary : 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.

Review:  Calder is a merman.  A killer one. He and his sisters Maris, Tallulah and Pavati prey on humans, kill them for food. But this time, their target is different-they’re targeting Jason Hancock, who they blame for their mother’s death. Calder is told to seduce the daughter, Lily. This doesn’t work. Calder falls in love with her. In time though, Lily starts thinking more and more about those legends of the monsters in the lake, and Calder’s cover may be blown. On other counts, the sisters want the love interest’s father dead. Really soon.

KILLER MERMAIDS. That sums up why I really wanted to read this.  I kind of dislike mermaids that are generally boring. But these are really interesting versions. Oh, and we also have killer mer-MEN too. Sea creatures are generally female, so this was a nice breath of fresh air.

Lily and Calder fall in love really easily, which is a bit annoying. Actaully, it’s very annoying. Instalove is not good, just because i wonder how it happens. I’m sure it doesn’t happen  in real life. It’s also half-stereotypical circumstances they fall in love with-guy is meant to be doing something bad to girl, girl is in real danger, they fall in love anyway. Actually, not half stereotypical-very stereotypical. It would be nice if the guy fell in love with the girl and then killed the girl/her family anyway.

It’s really nice seeing things from the non-human POV. And from a merman’s perspective.  Whose sisters get  a little crazy in the insane, psychotic, way. Water based creatures are interesting but not seen enough of. It’s interesting how the mermaids can survive perfectly well on land and in the air.  Typical mermaid lore puts them in the water full time, and there’s nothing to say they’ve been enchanted or anything. So you can’t really call them mer-people. More like amphi-people.

Lots of different things happen, some of which you care about, many of which you don’t. It’s a bit predictable and simple, and I don’t really care. The romance took up too much of the plot considering we were promised much more interesting things in the summary, and it’s all quite typical in terms of what paranormal romance things were incorporated.

The male POV, and the general writing style, is good. You understand everything  that happens and it’s easy enough to  pick up on the surroundings, what with the description and stuff. It’s also quite slow and filled with some obligatory lifesaving scenes and tortured male love interest feelings.

Overall:  Strength 3 tea to a book with a nice idea, that didn’t turn out as well as it could have done.

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