"We are men of the sea, my dear. Here we live, and here we will die."
Buddy read with the Dust Off Your MacHalo group. Together we swam to waters best left unexplored.
It's rare for me to give a book one star. Most disliked books are good enough for a two-star at least. This one kind of is too, but it kept pissing me off.
We get kudos on the fun (cheesy) title, and the story is actually kind of creative. It's a little preachy in a conservative way, but that didn't bother me. What bothered me was the horrible characters, false advertising, stupid character moves, that ridiculous cliffhanger ending, and the stupid island. Because see, I HATE the Island. It is alive with its own personality and I loathe it. It controls all the people in the book and acts like the 'other woman', the one who takes men away or twists them and controls everyone's moves. Annoying. I wish I had an imaginary bomb to throw on this imaginary island.
And the men! They are all asses. There's nothing redeeming about them - you want to slap everyone you meet. From their barbaric tendencies, treating all women like inferior property, SMUGNESS, and irritating laughs, I couldn't stand them.
The same goes for the main male character, Roen. He was a heartless bastard before the island, and even if he developed weird chemistry with Liv, he's still a heartless bastard in the end. When they meet on the island, he's being selfish with water while she's suffering from dehydration for crying out loud. He tells her nothing in life is free, then gets pissy when she accuses him of wanting to trade her body for water, when that's obviously what he had been doing.
You'd think this was a cheesy romance book, and you're right to a degree (with the exception that there's no way Liv should keep hearting the asshole character Roen), but there's no bedroom action or steam. It looks to at least be silly smut but even that's not here. What book with this cover doesn't have smut?
They also claim no woman is forced on the island, but if the woman is changed because of the island making them change and the chemistry from the bonding, free will is out the window and "choice" be damned anyway, right?
That cliffhanger? Unforgivable. I can't stand abrupt cliffhangers like that, they are cheap TV show finale types that don't belong in novels. The cliffhanger came out of the blue like a hammer to the head, you didn't even know it was there until the last page and wham, headache/concussion.
The writing style wasn't horrible enough for one star by itself, but I did find an amusing mistake at the beginning:
"the violently rolling waves tossing her raft around like a wet sock in a drier."
Grrr, it's dryer!
I will give kudos that the heroine was at least 29 and not the typical romance of 18-21. And on the plus side, the beginning actually wasn't bad, it just started souring when she met the horrible men. Err, mermen. And that's another thing - these mermen don't have mermaid features. They don't have tails, fins, or anything watery.
It does amuse me the sequel is named 'Mermadmen"
Book Quotes:
“The heat of his sweet breath mixing with hers, his scent filling her lungs, was like a drug made from concentrated sin.”
