Book Review: Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown

Lies Beneath
by Anne Greenwood Brown

Genre: YA Paranormal / Romance / Fairy-Tale

Ages: 14 and up

I received an advance e-copy of this novel through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Description:

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 irresistible good looks and charm on unsuspecting 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.



My Thoughts:

This book is written from the point of view of Calder, a merman who has not killed anyone for five months. He says as much at the very beginning. I couldn't help but give my computer a funny look. And then leaned closer to read the explanation. Calder is an interesting character. Despite his sister's murderous propensities, he fights his nature (which tells him to drag people into the lake and absorb their happiness). His abstinence starts out as an experiment, but after interacting more with humans it becomes more than that. Though he and his sisters have sworn to kill Jason Hancock in revenge for something his father did, fulfilling a bargain made between their mother and his father. To do this Calder gets close to Lily, Jason's daughter, and his views begin to change. I enjoyed watching how is character developed, and it should be interesting to see what happens in the sequel.

Lily Hancock, naive and poetic, is a far less complex character than Calder and yet she suits him. Her innocence teaches him a lot, and I loved how simple it was for her to accept his mythical status with the simple belief of those who read too many fairy-tales. And this story is essentially a fairy-tale; the dark and savagely beautiful kind.

The storyline is fairly predictable, with nearly the same plot as half a dozen other YA novels, only with mermaids. I loved the setting of Lake Superior and the writing style was pretty good with a lovely slow reveal of past secrets. There is a lot of potential for the second novel and I can't wait to read it.

Rating System: Profanity, Sexuality and Violence
1 (mild) through 10 (extreme).

Profanity:
I rate it a 4.10 for some mid-level swearing.

Sexuality:
I give it a 2.10 for some mild references.

Violence:
I rate it a 7.10 for murders and torture, none of which is particularly graphic but mildly disturbing.

                                   Lieder Madchen