Review: Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown

Title: Lies Beneath

Author: Anne Greenwood Brown

Series: Lies Beneath #1

Genre: Urban Fantasy/Mermaids/Romance

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Publication Date: June 12th, 2012

Edition: Hardcover, First Edition, 306 pages

Source: Purchased

Purchase:  BAM 

Synopsis:

   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 and absorb their positive energy. Usually, they select their victims at random, but this time around, the underwater clan chooses its target for a reason: revenge. They want to kill Jason Hancock, the man they blame for their mother's death.

       It's going to take a concerted effort to lure the aquaphobic Hancock onto the water. Calder's job is to gain Hancock's trust by getting close to his family. Relying on his irresistible good looks and charm, Calder sets out to seduce Hancock's daughter Lily. Easy enough, but Calder screws everything up by falling in love--just as Lily starts to suspect there's more to the monster-in-the-lake legends than she ever imagined, and just as the mermaids threaten to take matters into their own hands, forcing Calder to choose between them and the girl he loves.

       One thing's for sure: whatever Calder decides, the outcome won't be pretty

   So, I am 3 for 5 on merfolk books this year that I enjoyed. And this one was the most unique of them all. (Also, holy crap I just noticed that it's 6am... I have been up all night reading this book, that's gonna come back to me later today. (*Reminder: Drink lots of coffee later*)

   Anyways, what makes this one different is that the main character is a guy and a mer....dude (I really don't like the term of merman, it's lame) I guess they are all water merpeople since they can go from ocean water to freshwater no problem. In most other stories in this genre, they can only shift in saltwater for pretty much no reason other than it's more common in mythology for them to be in an ocean.

   I also liked that it was less 'Disney' and more Brothers Grimm. Calder and his sisters aren't exactly... nice. They drain people of their emotions while dragging them to their death. It's what they do to survive, although Calder doesn't like doing it and tries to limit the number of kills, and his sisters mock him for it. I liked just about all the characters in this book, although through most of the book, the Jack character was really annoying and I didn't care for him at all. He was kind of pointless in some aspects. But he wasn't in many scenes so that was fine. He was written well, I just found him annoying.

   Even though it was kind of messed up, I liked the dynamic between Calder and his sadistic sisters. Maris, Pavati, and Tallula. It's pretty obvious that he was "adopted", since he doesn't share the same passion for making kills as they do, nor does he like to migrate with them when the time comes. He still does it eventually because he can only resist the pull for so long. Lily was also a great character. And pretty different from many female characters I have read about. She's kind of a hippy in the way she dresses. She thinks of herself as a poet, something that not many or any teenage girls aspire to be.

   This book was a lot shorter than I expected it to be. Super thin book, that didn't feel short. I knew it was because of its physical size, but the story is written in such a way that it feels much longer. And I mean that in a good way. I was able to really delve into the book and just immerse myself in this book. I can't wait to read the sequel, I kind of wish I hadn't forgotten it had a sequel when I bought this one so I could've bought it at the same time I got this one.